This article contains spoilers for Andor Season 2 Episodes 4 through 6.
Star Wars fans were likely very shocked when they tuned into the latest batch of episodes for Andor Season 2 to find that the character of Bail Organa had been recast. First alluded to in the first Star Wars back in 1977 as the adopted father of Leia Organa, Bail Organa made his on-screen debut in 2002’s Attack of the Clones, played by Jimmy Smits. Smits returned for a larger role in 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, making him one of the film’s central lead characters as he assists Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in going into exile. With Andor being a direct lead-in to Rogue One, a film where Smits appeared as Bail Organa, many expected him to reprise his role for the second season of the hit Disney+ series. Yet, to the shock of many, it is actor Benjamin Bratt stepping into the role of Bail Organa on Andor.
While Smits did not reprise the role of Bail Organa in animated projects like Star Wars Rebels or Tales of the Jedi, he had appeared in live-action continuations, such as Rogue One and the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, which aired as recently as 2022. It likely stood out even more than usual, considering many fans likely just saw Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa in the re-release of Revenge of the Sith over the weekend, earning an impressive $25.2 million. It leaves fans wondering why Smits did not return to play Bail Organa in Andor Season 2, sparking another discussion about recasting Star Wars characters.
Why Did ‘Andor’ Recast Bail Organa in the First Place?
Currently, there is no confirmation of why Smits was recast. While Benjamin Pratt had been confirmed to join the cast of Andor Season 2 back in 2023, Lucasfilm never confirmed he was playing Bail Organa. In fact, the only hint that he was coming was right as the first batch of episodes was airing, and reviews suggested a legacy character was being recast. If anything, this decision to keep it a secret might be what makes the decision so jarring, as if they had come out two years ago and let fans know this wouldn’t be that notable.
The only hint that fans have about why Smits was recast is a possible scheduling conflict, as Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy alluded to in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Legacy characters are really tricky to bring back. They’re very, very expensive. A lot of times, their schedules don’t work out. There’s probably a couple people that we wanted to have in Yavin at the end, who are in the beginning of Rogue, but we just couldn’t get them because they were busy.”
At the time Andor Season 2 was filming, Smits was starring in the short-lived television series East New York, which ran from October 2, 2022, to May 14, 2023. Andor Season 2 began filming in November 2022 and continued until July 2023, before being stalled due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Even though the series resumed production in January 2024, when Smits seemingly would have become available.
While all of Vanessa Fisk’s scenes in Daredevil: Born Again were reshoot to replace Sandrine Holt with original actress Ayelet Zurer, it didn’t seem like Gilroy was going to toss out the work that Bratt had done on Andor. Particularly as it seems like Bratt’s role will be expanded upon in future episodes of Andor as the series gets closer to the events of Rogue One.
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‘Star Wars’ Complicated History With Recasting Iconic Roles
This gets to a core issue that seems to be plaguing Star Wars more than any other franchise: recasting. Until about the 2000s, recasting an iconic role was just a given, with no one being confused by it. There were four James Bonds in the same continuity between 1962 and 2022, and three different Batman actors in less than a decade. However, as audiences have become more accustomed to interconnectivity and continuity across various media, like film and television, audiences seem to have a hard time wrapping their minds around recasting an actor.
Star Wars has had an interesting relationship with recasting characters. Ewan McGregor plays a younger version of Obi-Wan Kenobi, after Alec Guinness originally played the role. The character was so popular that McGregor got his own Disney+ series. While Disney and Lucasfilm seem open to recasting roles to play younger versions of the characters, like Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover as Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, when it comes to characters set during the contemporary events of past stories, they are very resistant.
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Then there is the controversial use of digital deep fakes to de-age actors or create entirely new digital performances. The most notable are the awkward-looking visual effects on Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Not only do the facial features look stiff, but the vocal performance feels lifeless. It is just as distracting as simply recasting the role of Luke Skywalker with, say, Sebastian Stan. Now, Star Wars doesn’t need to use these characters, and the very human restrictions of actors’ availability can make the writers more creative in creating new original characters. But if the option is recast or digital deep fake, recasting seems like the no-brainer.
Tony Gilroy and Lucasfilm were okay with recasting the role of Bail Organa, and while that might be a little jarring to some fans, it is a necessary part of production that comes with working with real people. The worst thing it does is, as one fan pointed out, make the reveal of Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa in Rogue One a little funnier. But it doesn’t impact Andor‘s quality. On the plus side, a talented actor like Benjamin Bratt is in Star Wars, and that should be seen as a win.
Stream Andor on Disney+.
