SPRING 2025
Wearing DIOR MEN and OMEGA
Photography Kevin Sinclair Styling Oretta Corbelli Interview David Gargiulo Production Jennifer Malone
There are no Jedi in Star Wars: Andor, and that’s exactly what makes it so powerful. The battle for freedom doesn’t begin in a trench. It starts in offices, on data pads, and behind bureaucratic desks.
The Disney+ series takes a daring detour from the galaxy’s usual spectacle to explore the quieter, insidious machinery of oppression. At its heart is Syril Karn, a mid-level functionary obsessed with order and righteousness, played with unsettling precision by Kyle Soller. Where others see power in lightsabers, Syril believes in protocol, routine, discipline, and punishment. But his journey is not one of redemption or villainy. It's something far more tragic and human. His sense of self is shaped by the rigid structures he serves, but it’s also marked by a deep sense of trauma and a yearning for purpose. Within these cold systems of bureaucracy, we see how individuals like Syril become trapped, their human needs for belonging and validation twisted by the powers they serve. Andor masterfully examines how the human condition is manipulated by larger forces, forcing characters to navigate their desires for significance in a world that treats them as disposable. With Season 2, currently streaming on Disney+, Andor prepares to bridge the gap between personal awakening and galactic uprising. The show has earned praise for its razor-sharp writing, grounded storytelling, and a tone more aligned with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold than The Phantom Menace. Kyle reflects on the intricacies of his role and the broader themes of Andor, diving into the trauma and manipulation that define Syril's journey.
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David Gargiulo __ You started in theater. What drew you to screen acting?
Kyle Soller __ I've always loved cinema. Some of that was influenced by my parents and the movies we were allowed to watch. I always had a fascination with European cinema and old movies as a kid. So I suppose it was just sort of built in from my experience watching films growing up. I wanted to start out in theater because that's what I started with as a kid. There's really nothing more electrifying than telling a story with an audience. And I wanted to get the best training in that. Then, another world opens in screen acting, which it's a whole different methodology of telling stories. A different way of working and thinking, different muscles are used. The challenge of just acting in a new and different way, and being exposed to a different canvas for expressing imagination and storytelling. I'm curious by nature, so it felt like the logical next step.
DG __ How was the transition?
KS __ There's a unique thrill and responsibility about telling an entire story every evening. There's also a unique thrill and responsibility about being dropped in halfway through a story—in a very important scene that you're shooting out of sequence—and you've just met your scene partner for the first time. It was strange at first, but very rewarding.
DG __Do you have any strategies that help you anchor yourself in a character so you can drop right into it on set?
KS __ A lot of that is just the work I do on the character, my own backstory, that really anchors me. I do a lot of research. That’s just the curious part of me. I love filling out the corners. I tend to have a little notebook for each character I play. It’s all sorts of things, stuff that comes up while the part is being prepared and played. I have it with me at all times; I don’t even need to look at it. I just need to know it’s there. That’s kind of my way in. Coming from theater helps too. Film and theater are both very collaborative forms of creativity. Working the scenes together with your fellow actors, staying alive with each other. That’s different for every job. But when it’s good, like on Andor, you’ve got people who created a set that felt really playful and alive.
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DG __ What was your process for building the character of Syril Karn in Andor?
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KS __ So, I play Syril Karn, who is … how to describe him? [pensive] He’s kind of a mid-level Imperial bureaucrat. He starts off as a corporate cop on some far-flung planet and has delusions of grandeur. He's a romanticist, a fantasist, an idealist. He’s a loner, struggling with deep wounds of inadequacy and a deep desire for recognition, power, and control. In the first three episodes, you meet his mother and immediately understand who this person is. She’s the most toxic, domineering, controlling, oxygen-absorbing creature on Coruscant. They live in this tiny one-and-a-half-bedroom apartment, and she’s been controlling his life since birth; his father left when he was very young. Growing up on Coruscant, Syril became a natural target for the Empire's propaganda machine. Someone they could suck up and use. The Empire has a very clear reward system based on high achievement, taking power from others, and total control. But instead of working directly for the Empire, he’s stuck as a corporate cop and he’s pissed off, because he believes he’s so much better than everyone else. He has these idiosyncrasies I loved; he tailors his own clothing, has a good eye for fashion, and an obsessive attention to detail. Then he goes on this journey, trying to capture Cassian Andor, who killed two fellow officers. He becomes obsessed with the idea of catching him, as if by doing that, he can transcend his station and become the perfect little cog in the Empire’s authoritarian machine. And that decision, to pursue Cassian behind his boss’s back, really kickstarts everything: the Empire tightening its grip, the rebellion rising. If Syril had just let it go, maybe none of it would’ve happened. He fails. He’s discharged in disgrace. He returns home to live with his mother. His obsession with Cassian transfers to Dedra, a member of the ISB [Imperial Security Bureau], which is kind of like the authoritarian police of the Empire. Long story short, he ends up rescuing her at the end of Season 1 while they’re both hunting Cassian. In Season 2, we find him on a new planet, promoted, wearing new clothes, trying to navigate his relationship with his mother. He’s now playing at being a spy for the Empire, his childhood dream, before everything he believes in comes crashing down. It’s an incredible journey: from being a nobody on some far-off planet to playing a role in one of the most pivotal events in Star Wars galactic history. And he’s none the wiser, because ultimately he’s an example of someone used, chewed up, and spat out by the Imperial machine. A machine with no regard for life, love, or forgiveness. Syril represents the “banality of evil,” a normal man with just the right traits to be warped and used by a powerful, controlling movement. And he believes he’s doing the right thing. That’s the confusing part. He has a high moral code. A lot of characters in Andor operate in a gray area. The first time you meet Cassian, he kills two guys. And he’s the hero, right? We’re in a world where right isn’t always right and wrong isn’t always wrong. You get this deep view of both sides where, by the end, you’re asking: were the rebels right? Was the Empire entirely wrong? Maybe not everyone in it was bad. It’s a real exercise in empathy and human complexity. And in the middle of it is Syril, a little ball of a man trying to find himself, so blinded by obsession and the idea of power that his soul is ultimately corrupted. There’s no way out for him.
DG __ It makes total sense. When I think about Syril, I don't know if we can really say that he's a villain. I feel like he's more a victim of ideology, you know?
KS __ It's a great question. I agree with you. I’ve always thought, is he a bad guy? Is he a villain? And he’s not the typical Star Wars villain. I don’t think he’s as hardcore true believer as Dedra, who is willing to sacrifice more for the Empire than people realize. Cyril isn’t willing to sacrifice his humanity, and that says to me he has more heart and awareness than Dedra. I think that heart was always there, and he’s been trying to armor it up his whole life. Ultimately, finding Dedra and starting a relationship with her opens him up to intimacy, and any kind of intimacy affects you. You see someone crying on the street, maybe you do something, maybe you don’t, but it touches you. Living with someone day in and out changes you. And then he’s placed on Gorman, asked to go undercover and work with the Gorman resistance, and that affects him too. You see him start to change his clothes and his appearance, and adopt a different way of being. His armor gets pierced. I see him as a victim of ideology. A guy who, if he’d just had a bit more love, or been stationed somewhere else, maybe he’d have turned out okay. He’s walking on a razor's edge. He really believes he’s upholding justice. He thinks what he’s doing is right. His moral code is actually quite ethical. But in the end, yeah, he's working for the Empire. He’s so ideologically brainwashed by that point that he won’t admit what’s obvious—that the Empire is harming people, and that level of control is dangerous. He’s a victim of ideology, but also a victim of his own desire for fame, recognition, and love. If he’d had more love growing up, maybe he wouldn’t have needed to fill that hole.
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DG __ That’s caused by the toxic relationship with his mother, isn't it?
KS __ Yeah, exactly. Part of the reason he ends up in this situation is that he’s not emotionally equipped for the world he finds himself in. And as a result, while he and Dedra were living together, he was still trying to romanticize it as a healthy relationship. But he doesn’t know what that is. He has no frame of reference for a healthy relationship. He’s searching for who he is through other people, through the structure of the Empire, and using that to define himself. For example, he is looking for a romanticized version of a father figure in the head of the ISB. So it is kind of a coming-of-age story for him, which only really happens once the betrayals hit. And that pearl of realization comes to him way too late.
DG __ Let me pivot back to you. How has your American background influenced your experience as an actor living and working in the UK?
KS __ I was one of two Americans in my year at drama school, and when I graduated, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I had an extended visa, and I’d gotten an agent, so they started sending me out for auditions. Work wasn’t really happening. I did a very small American play at The Finborough Theater, and I just felt like I needed to do something that wasn’t straight American. When I was going into auditions with a British accent, I wasn’t getting the roles. I felt like they were just waiting for me to mess up the accent rather than watching me act. So I started going into auditions as British [laughs], and that’s when things started to shift. Eventually, I didn’t have to go in pretending anymore; people knew who I was. But still, people, especially in America, think I’m a British actor. It’s funny. I have this strange, straddling-the-Atlantic personality or something. There’s always this question: is he British? Is he American? At this point, I’ve played probably 50/50 British and American roles, on screen and stage, so I get it. But it’s been a unique experience, especially because most people go the other way, meaning to the States. For me, it’s been amazing. I’ve had a really rich experience being American, while also pretending not to be. I’ve been very fortunate.
DG __ I get it. Where do you find yourself more rooted though?
KS __ I still feel like I’m straddling. One foot here, one foot there. There’s a great quote by Pico della Mirandola “You’re the son of both but a creature of neither.” I feel very connected here, and I’m also deeply connected to the mythologies, the landscape, the stories, and the weirdness of America. That stuff is rooted in my psyche from growing up. It’s been powerful, looking at America from afar for so long.
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DG __ And how do you stay creatively fulfilled between projects? Do you paint, write, read, travel, or something else entirely?
KS __ Traveling, getting out in nature. That’s me. Staying active, getting into my body really helps my creativity.
DG __ You mean exercising?
KS __ I do! I do Muay Thai.
DG __ Oh, I did Muay Thai for many years!
KS __ Did you? Great sport. I love it! [smiles]
DG __ What about nature? Do you enjoy spending time outdoors?
KS __ I do! I’ve been thinking about it for so long. Just going away for a month or more. Solitude is really important to recharge. I think it is for everyone, but for me, it’s essential. I want to do that, though with some kind of challenge attached. Just going away to escape feels like, well, an escape. But going away to challenge yourself, or to move into a new state, to shed a skin, that feels necessary. Just staying in a place and doing really deep internal work, trying to move into another state of creativity.
DG __ So going deep within. How do you see your voice evolving within the industry? Are there stories you feel called to champion?
KS __ It’s been really interesting being part of such a large-scale prestigious project like Star Wars, which is nearly 50 years old and has this vast, diehard following. As that’s happened, I’ve felt more and more like people ask what you think about everything, because you’re visible, and you're part of something that's affected so many people. That’s been a really interesting process to go through. I did a play called The Inheritance, directed by Stephen Daldry, written by a New York playwright, Matthew Lopez. It was a two-part play, almost seven hours long. Kind of a spiritual sibling to Angels in America. It’s about modern gay men in New York in 2018, wrestling with how to carry the legacy of the AIDS years. The story is told through the conceit of the book Howards End. That was just as affecting an experience. It felt like I was dropped into a community still grieving, still searching for how to heal, how to move forward. People wanted to share their stories. Being an actor is incredible. You have these moments where you really do touch people. It’s possible to change lives. It’s delicate. And I still feel deeply connected to, and in debt to, the LGBTQ community we worked with on that project. It’s interesting. I haven’t picked a platform to speak on, I haven’t planned any of this. I’ve just found myself in the right place at the right time with these stories. And I’ve felt aligned with what they’re trying to do. The Inheritance, Star Wars. They’re both, in different ways, trying to envision a better world. How do we do that together? How do we look at the light and the dark? How do we forgive, cleanse, move forward? Those are the projects I want to work on for the rest of my life. And they don’t always come around. But I want to work on things that probe the human condition, that really affect people. Stories that change lives. I don’t say that flippantly or with grandeur. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve felt it happen. And once you taste that, it’s pretty hard to do anything else.