Elizabeth Dulau Talks About Kleya Marki and Working with Stellan Skarsgård
Elizabeth Dulau has been speaking in multiple interviews about her fierce rebel agent Kleya Marki from Andor, and what it was like working with Stellan Skarsgård in her very first acting job.
In an interview with _The Hollywood Reporter_ (_THR_), Dulau revealed how her audition for _Andor_ went; understandably, she was quite nervous. It was only on her callback that she would be working with Skarsgård, and at Pinewood Studios no less. Thankfully, the famous actor made an effort to put her at ease before they got to work.
> “I had my recall just before Christmas, the day before _another_ lockdown. We then came back in January [2021], and my agent said, “The feedback from the recall was that they really liked you. They thought you were great. The only note was you seemed a little bit nervous. So they want to see you again, and they just want to make sure that you’ll be able to handle yourself. So walk in that room with as much confidence as you can; walk in that room like you are the dog’s bollocks.”
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> “Then she said, “Also, you’ll be reading at Pinewood Studios opposite Stellan Skarsgård, but don’t let that make you nervous.” (_Laughs_.) I think I just burst out laughing because that’s insane. It was just an unbelievable thing to hear.
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> “But, because of Covid and all the restrictions, we had to wait for Stellan to be allowed to fly into the country. So there were still a few weeks in between to prep, and I prepped like hell. I learned all my lines upside down, back to front, sideways. I then met Stellan for ten minutes before that final audition, and we chatted over coffee.
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> “Stellan has this wonderful magic about him. You just forget that he’s the legend Stellan Skarsgård. He really makes you feel at ease, and after just those ten minutes with him, I really felt like I was walking in the room with a friend, with someone who had my back and was there for me. And he was that way, continuously, throughout the next three years. I was intimidated by the scale of this production and how new it all felt, but I’ve never felt intimidated by Stellan. He always felt like my pal who’s got my back.”
(L-R) Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård)in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Much has been made of the fact that _Andor_ was Dulau’s first professional acting gig, but she reveals that was partly due to the fact that she graduated from RADA just before the pandemic hit.
> “Well, I walked off stage at RADA straight into the pandemic. We were literally four performances into a production of _The Importance of Being Earnest_ ; I was playing Lady Bracknell. Our artistic director said, “Tonight will be the final performance.” So we all had a big old cry, and we did the show before we all disappeared. We thought we’d be back in three weeks, but of course, we weren’t. The audition for _Andor_ then came around in November of 2020, so I spent those six months [in between] not really sure what to do.
If she was nervous before Season 1, then she definitely was ahead of Season 2 when Tony Gilroy told her she’d be playing a bigger role.
> “It was in the summer before season one came out in September 2022. It was just before it came out because we knew that we were going to start shooting that November [2022]. Tony called me that summer to tell me everything that happened for Kleya this season, and I was just completely speechless. The arc he’s created for me this season is just mind-blowing, and I’m so grateful to him. I love it when I’m scared of a job. I love it when the challenge is so immense and it’s like, “Oh my God, can I do that?” Deep down, I always know that I can, but it’s still scary.
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> “Tony first told me how that would end, and I was shocked. And reading it, I just felt enormously grateful to him for writing such an interesting role. I felt really supported by this giant, Tony Gilroy, in that moment. She’s just such a compelling character, and at this point in my career, when I just graduated not too long ago, it means the world that he had that much faith in me to write an arc like this.
Speaking to TV Line, she revealed that she had always hoped that Kleya Marki would have a bigger role to play.
> “I mean, I was hoping that she would become that, that her role would expand and that you’d get to know her a bit more. But what’s brilliant about [_Andor_ creator] Tony [Gilroy]’s writing is that you really never know where it’s going to go. So, no, I wasn’t prepared for exactly where he was going to take her — but I _love_ where she went in the end.”
Dulau also shed some light on her prep for the party scene in episode six.
> “This scene was so fun to shoot because I had quite a long time to prepare for it. The script didn’t change too much, a month or two in the lead up to the day, so I could learn my lines really far in advance, which was great because this scene was _incredibly_ technical. Kleya’s focus is on four different things. She’s focusing on [removing] the bug underneath the artifact; she’s focusing on pretending to seem like she’s flirting with Lonnie; she’s also focusing _on_ Lonnie to make sure he doesn’t freak out; and she’s focusing on the other group in the room to make sure they don’t see what she’s doing.
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> “Having my lines learned so far in advance meant that I didn’t have to think about them on the day, and I could just pick each moment in the script to throw my attention to the different the different parts of that machine.”
Episode 10 of _Andor_ Season 2 finally gave us Kleya Marki and Luthen’s surprising history together. Dulau told _THR_ how it differed to what she had imagined, and how strange it felt not knowing the history of Kleya Marki going into Season 1.
> “I deliberately tried not to imagine anything, and it was really hard because that’s the opposite of how I like to work. I come from a theater background where you have the whole play. So you can allow your imagination to run riot about their lives beforehand, and not being able to do that on season one felt very strange. So I just went with everything that Tony had [originally] told me.
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> “He told me that Kleya would die for Luthen, and that she is entirely and utterly committed to this man. So I just took that and ran with it, and I tried not to get too caught up in the why, because I was hoping it would be answered later down the line.
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> “And I’m really glad I did that, because if I had tried to imagine some kind of backstory for her, then I might have made choices in season one that would’ve made my life more difficult on season two. So I really left her backstory and my imagination totally blank during season one. I just waited for it to be given to me for season two, and what a treat it was.”
(L-R): Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) and Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
She explained what Kleya Marki was thinking when she infiltrates the hospital to assassinate Luthen.
> “The key to Kleya’s mindset in that episode with the mission at the hospital _is_ that she is _entirely_ conflicted. Luthen, when she first met him 17 years prior, he was part of something that was horrifying to her, and pulled apart her whole life. So there’s a lot of resentment towards him ,and hate and fear towards Luthen, and then she doesn’t forget that. It was so horrific, she can’t forgive him and move on from that, but love _grows_ for him unintentionally over the years.
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> “And so I think Kleya uses the hate that she’s felt for him to help her do what she needs to do, but the love that she feels for him gets in the way. So shooting that scene, I really wanted to connect with those both those conflicting feelings as intensely as I could, because I think it’s the tension between those two feelings that eventually pulls her apart. In Episode 11 and 12, she’s a broken person because she’s pulled apart by those two warring emotions.
_THR_ confirmed that Kleya Marki’s decision to close the blinds after pulling the plug on Luthen was a nod to his Season 1 monologue, creating a “sunless space” for him to rest in. Dulau elaborated on that a bit, revealing that the script gave her a lot of room to improvise.
> “[That monologue] has always been there in the background. I was super nervous because it felt like the entire filming process was leading up to that day. I always had it in the back of my mind, and I deliberately tried not to overthink it. When I looked at Stellan lying there on this hospital bed, I really felt heartbroken for what Kleya was about to do.
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> “I remember just doing a lot of deep breathing to try to stay calm. The thing with scenes that have the potential to be really emotional is you have to stay relaxed to allow them to come through. Nerves can really lock you up. So I did a lot of deep breathing, and I suppose I just tried to not put too much pressure on myself because I’m very good at that. I tried to just reassure myself that whatever work I do on this day is going to be good enough because it has to be. So I tried to just be super kind myself, which helped keep me relaxed. It helped me really commit to the imagined circumstances, and when I looked at Stellan lying there on this hospital bed, I really felt heartbroken for what Kleya was about to do.
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> “The script was really beautiful, actually. There was very little on the page, and it gave a lot of space for me to fill in the blanks. The very last words were something like “a moment to pay our respects for this man,” and I think you feel that in the scene because he’s this huge figure within the Rebellion. So the audience deserves that moment to say goodbye to him.”
_THR_ also compared the relationship between Luthen Rael and Kleya Marki to Joel and Ellie’s in _The Last of Us_ , but Dulau felt the _Andor_ pairing was even darker.
> “That story [_The Last of Us_] obviously has its darkness as well, but Luthen and Kleya, my heart breaks when I think about them. The love that grows between them is incidental. Neither of them want to acknowledge the fact or admit to themselves that they’ve come to love one another because of that day 16 or 17 years ago.
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> “Luthen came to Kleya’s people, and he had a hand in destroying them all. That day can never be erased. It can never be forgotten. They can’t just forgive and forget that; it’s too huge an event. So that darkness stays with them in a way that makes their story quite unique.
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> “I remember Tony referencing _Paper_ _Moon_ when talking about their relationship, but it’s also different from _Paper_ _Moon_. It’s just so much darker. What Luthen did to her people all those years ago, or what he contributed to, is horrifying. So that can never go anywhere, but their love grows incidentally around it.”
Dulau also delved into the meaning in the line uttered by Kleya Marki, “It would be you, wouldn’t it?” when Cassian Andor arrives to extract her.
> “There’s a moment in [209] when Luthen says to Cassian, “You [always] appeared when I needed you.” And he finds it to be a slightly strange thing. I wonder if Luthen is the kind of character who has a curiosity around things like the Force and those more fantasy elements that we see in _Star Wars_.
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> So I always imagined that Luthen had said something like that to Kleya [off screen]: “There’s something special about Cassian. He always really comes through for us in the end, even though he’s reluctant.” So that’s what I had in my mind when Kleya sees him at the door: “Oh, of course, it’s Cassian that’s here after Luthen has said all this to me about him. Of course, he’s the one that pulls through in the end, again.”
Kleya, played by Elizabeth Dulau
_THR_ also asked if Kleya Marki felt at home on Yavin IV, but Dulau — like Tony Gilroy — isn’t particularly convinced. She’s had to do some dark things and perhaps doesn’t feel like the others on Yavin have had to do the same thing, Cassian Andor aside.
> “Is Kleya the kind of character that’s ever able to do that? This is the question. I’d love for her to have that, but that would be an entirely new concept in and of itself for Kleya. She’s never had a sense of home, belonging, safety and friendship. These would be very new concepts for her, and I’d be intrigued to see if that’s something she’s even able to do.
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> “That’s another thing that Luthen’s speech is all about. He and Kleya have completely come to terms with the fact that to achieve the “greater good,” they sometimes have to do things that are morally ambiguous. They’re willing to stray into those moral gray areas in order to find the light again, and because they’re willing to go to those places, I don’t think they would even feel comfortable getting any credit. They’re certainly not in it for that. God, if someone was to try to give Kleya a medal one day, I really don’t know that she would accept it. It’s not her vibe.
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> “I’m going to watch _Rogue One_ after _Andor_ is all aired. I’ve deliberately avoided it because it felt too soon, somehow. I really want to indulge in being able to watch the end of this series that’s been such a huge part of my life and see how it all fits in. But imagining what Kleya is doing off screen during those _Rogue_ _One_ and _A_ _New_ _Hope_ years, oh my gosh. It’s a huge question, isn’t it? So I don’t know, and I certainly wouldn’t want to come up with the answer to that. A brilliant writer would do a much better job.”
Further to that, Dulau would also like to see what happened in the year between episodes 9 and 10 that led to Kleya Marki and Luthen being cast out after Mon made it to Yavin.
> “The year between 209 and 210 is very interesting. Mon Mothma is now the official figurehead of the Rebellion on Yavin, and Luthen and Kleya feel left out in the cold. So I’d be really interested to see how that happened, and I think it would be really quite painful. There’s a connection between Mon, Kleya and Luthen. They’ve known each other for years by this point, and they’ve come to trust each other.
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> “Mon is someone that Kleya has come to really respect. The speech she makes at the Senate and everything that she throws away to become the leader of the Rebel Alliance, I always played it as something that Kleya really respects. So, to then feel cast out by her and the other leaders on Yavin, that’s a very painful thing that happened for her and Luthen. That would be interesting to explore.”
Finally, _THR_ asked for her fondest memory of _Andor_ , and she gave a rather sweet response.
> “Oh God, I’m going to cry. The most fun I had on set was the shot when Kleya shoots these two Stormtroopers on the top floor of the hospital. They rigged pyrotechnics to come out the back of them. So I pulled the trigger on a blaster, and it actually had an effect. There were sparks flying everywhere. I could fully invest in this imagined reality that I’m shooting these bad guys.
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> “So I think I’d tell them about that and these three consecutive night shoots in Valencia [Spain]. These were the scenes at the party in 206 where Kleya is getting the bug out of the exhibit. There were hundreds of extras on that set, and everyone was dressed in space haute couture. Aliens were serving cocktails, and droids were zipping about. So that is a memory I’ll never forget. Those scenes really made me feel like I was in Star Wars. It was completely magical to be in a galaxy far, far away.”
Perhaps one day, we’ll see more of Kleya Marki in _Star Wars_ , whether it’s in a live action project, a book or a comic. It seems Elizabeth Dulau would be up for reprising the role if we do.
##### Josh Atkins
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Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
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