Kyle Soller is currently starring on “Andor” as Imperial civil servant Syril Karn. Season 2 of Tony Gilroy’s “Star Wars” spinoff premieres April 22 on Disney+.
As a kid, I remember wanting to do everything. I was pulled in a lot of different directions and had many passions. I’m a middle child in a big family; for me, entertainment was a way to make people laugh and get attention. So when I stumbled into community theater, it felt really natural. It all made sense onstage. The challenge, for me, was learning how to stand still.
In the early 2000s, I did a summer school program at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art between my second and third year at William & Mary in Virginia. Being in London made me feel alive in a whole new way; it just felt like a natural next step. So I auditioned for the full course, and I waited for the phone call every night. When I got it, I dropped out of William & Mary and moved to London full time. I just jumped and didn’t look back.
It felt very unpopular to be an American in London at the time, so I was struggling with an identity crisis. It wasn’t easy to find work; I had to figure out how to get the right agent and cultivate relationships. It was a really big struggle to begin with; I pretty much didn’t work for the entire first year after graduating.
I started trying to hide my Americanness because I was only being seen for American roles. Things started to change when I auditioned at the Globe Theatre and just pretended to be English. I didn’t pretend to not be American in my everyday life, but I wondered if there was something going on where I needed to leave who I was behind in order to make it in London. I didn’t lie to anyone; it was just a choice I made.
If I could give advice to my younger self, I’d say to make friends with failure. It’s so hard to keep that candle burning, particularly given the current state of the industry. But I have to remind myself to keep taking risks and failing. You’re a channel for the creative spirit, and it needs to be able to move. Maybe that’s less advice and more Chicken Soup for the Soul.
That mindset of embracing risk is what prepared me for “Andor.” When we started filming the first season at the end of 2020, it was a very small, contained show; you’d be doing these really intimate scenes that felt almost like a Harold Pinter play. But then we got onto these massive sets, which were insane, and I realized that there was this huge international family that was so in love with and protective of this story. They welcomed me with open arms. But that meant going back to film another season felt like even more pressure.
Syril is a great character. Through him, Tony Gilroy is showing the banality of evil. He’s using the idea that this could be anybody who’s got a desk job, feels like an outsider, and is desperate to be loved. That’s a dangerous person to put into a dark behemoth like the Galactic Empire, which has a very straightforward reward system. If you help the organization exert more control, you ascend the ladder.
I never anticipated that we’d see a show that explored the bureaucratic side of the “Star Wars” universe. It’s so refreshing and relatable. But that’s exactly what Tony promised us at the beginning. He said, “We’re doing ‘Star Wars,’ but we’re doing our ‘Star Wars.’ ”
This essay is by Soller, as told to Theo Bosanquet.
This story originally appeared in the May 1 issue of Backstage Magazine.