Meet Kino Loy: Andy Serkis Unveils His New ‘Star Wars’ Character (2024)

Andy Serkis is one of the few people who can exist in multiple places within the same universe. Having played the towering, scarred Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars sequels via performance capture, he’s now returning to the galaxy in his own body as an entirely new character—the inmate/labor foreman Kino Loy in the latest episode of Andor.

We don’t yet know what to make of Loy, who is the order-barking manager for Unit Five-Two-D, which stands for floor five, room two on the day shift, aboard a vast floating prison vessel. Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) has been arrested, convicted, and sentenced to six years for being nothing more than a bystander, and this is where he is sent to serve his sentence. The inmates are assembling components for something (no one is quite sure what) for the Empire. These men are forced labor, and Loy is the one driving them, even though he is a prisoner too.

The star of The Lord of the Rings, the Planet of the Apes films, and the director of Mowgli and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, spoke exclusively with Vanity Fair about returning to Star Wars—this time as someone with virtually no power. At least, that’s what Kino Loy thinks.

Vanity Fair: People will hear Andy Serkis is in Andor, and they might think, “Oh, a Snoke origin story!”

Andy Serkis: [Laughs.] I know! It's a difficult one because I'm sure that's exactly what people will think. And why would they think other? I was a bit confused as to whether to do it or not, but it was purely because I love Rogue One. I truly loved the grounding of that film in a world which felt both real and yet still felt epic. Also, I'm getting to play a character at the opposite end of the spectrum of a highly powerful Supreme Leader. [Kino Loy] is someone who is a real person in this world.

We don't learn a lot about who Kino is. We know he’s a prisoner who oversees the forced labor of other prisoners. What else can you share about him?

What I imagined of Kino's backstory, before he was in prison, was that he was a union leader. He's used to working as a foreman. I wanted him to come from a place where he was put in prison for, perhaps, standing up for workers' rights, and then put into a position of authority because that's what he does. He is a natural leader. But he really just wants to serve his time. He's got a family. He wants to get out and get back, and assumes that that's going to happen after his incarceration.

He's abrasive at first. I won't say he's a bad guy, but he's not somebody who is comforting. His presence is harsh and he makes it clear to Cassian Andor that he doesn't really care about him. He cares about how he fits into this workroom that’s running fairly smoothly.

Exactly. He doesn't want to ruffle any feathers. He doesn't want to draw attention.

What motivates Kino Loy?

Obviously the electrification and the reward system. If you do well, you get flavoring with your food. If you don't do well, you get shocked. They are like rats in a scientific experiment. So everyone is working just to survive and get through. He's got basically a year left in prison and then he's going to be set free. So he doesn't want anything to upset that.

Kino does seem to buy into a fantasy of fairness. He thinks that if you follow the rules, you'll be rewarded. Without that belief, he probably couldn't function.

That's absolutely right. He's been brainwashed into believing that—even though he probably knows deep down that he's been imprisoned unfairly. He sort of cut that part of himself off. He just wants to do time and get out. They act almost like robots. Andor is questioning that. Obviously, he wants to escape, he wants to get out as quickly as possible, so these two are opposing forces

Kino can be kind, as well. He isn't always a hardass.

No, no, no. I mean he is tough, but he's only tough when it looks like [something is] going to endanger his own freedom or the freedom of others who have served their time and are about to get out. He won't abide that. It's tough love.

Do you think Kino has a corollary in real life, where people decide to go along with something even if they know it's wrong, because they feel like there's no other hope?

These stories are huge metaphors for the world that we live in. They are building these parts for a machine. They're teeny-weenie cogs. They're making parts for something, and they don't even know what it is. But it can only be something that is going to enhance and build up the power of the Empire. They're just drones. You could liken it to lots of situations around the world where people are in servitude or forced labor in order to produce something or other.

And often people will say, “Well why didn't they just rise up?” It's human nature to feel hopeless and not even try. Sometimes those in power depend on that hopelessness, right?

It's breaking down human will so that you accept what's given to you. That's why Cassian Andor is such an extraordinary heroic character. It's not like he's a swashbuckling hero. He's someone who understands that you have to stand up for what is right. The individual can make the difference and [this prison] is an environment that makes you think the individual has no chance of changing.

Is that why Kino clashes with him initially? He sees the wildness and the untamed quality in Cassian, and Kino has been tamed?

A hundred percent. It's the very nature of the way that they are tortured. There is no way to escape because of the electrification of the environment. It is that Pavlovian reaction to pain that is going to wear your nervous system down. Your body's telling you if you do that, you will receive pain. If you do [what you're told], you get rewarded.

There are no bars on their cells. The only thing holding them back is the shock they might receive. The Empire has succeeded in making them not want to leave. Their fear becomes the cage.

Correct. Absolutely. When you're on that set for weeks and weeks, everyone started to think as one and you could feel people losing their will. Once you were in there, there was no comfort. And it did leave you at the end of the day thinking, “Oh my God, get me out of here.” [Laughs.] It really was intense.

We were literally barefooted. And that's such an interesting choice of Tony [Gilroy's]... To take shoes away from you, to make you have bare feet, is a really weird sensation. Your feet on metal plates for days and days and days and days, does something to your energy. It just saps you.

Usually there are creatures, and droids, and people all intermingled in Star Wars. Why do you think this place is only humans?

They are the lowest of the low. The human beings in this setting have become irrelevant. You did feel like you had been dehumanized and that you had no identity and that your identity was exactly the same as everybody else. So it was a massive kind of leveler in that respect.

This is also a place where the Empire has realized they can keep the workers resenting each other and fighting rather than focusing on the actual source of their oppression.

That's the basis of so many political systems. Divide and rule is always going to work. We see it happening all around the world. Think of Spartacus. Go back through all of those great films, and that work is a brilliant kind of allegory for political systems.

Were there any other prison movies that served as inspiration? It seems like this part of Andor is shaping up as the Star Wars version of The Shawshank Redemption or maybe Cool Hand Luke, with the outsider who shakes up the system from within.

Shawshank almost feels luxurious because you can get to listen to opera! [Laughs.] We did talk about those films. But this was a sterile environment, where you're not able to have any personal effects. It's not like someone's coming around with some library books for you to read or you can go work in the kitchens for a bit or whatever. Even the showering system: a door shuts, we all stand there in line. This vapor comes, you don't even get to wash. You stand there, and you get vaped. And then you walk out and you put on your work clothes, which are the same as your evening clothes. It's just like—

…you're just another circuit, another mechanism…

That's right.

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