Andor’s Faye Marsay hasn’t received any backlash for playing queer Star Wars character: “It’s gorgeous”

The Star Wars fandom doesn’t have the best track record with how it treats marginalized fans. Sequel trilogy star John Boyega was so entirely turned off by the racism he experienced (and the lack of protection from Disney) that he seems to have been soured on the franchise altogether. His co-star Kelly Marie Tran endured similar abuse, and more recently Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram also faced harassment. Luckily, though, Andor star Faye Marsay managed to escape the worst the fandom has to offer.

Asked by The Independent if playing Star Wars’ first canonically queer character on screen got backlash, Marsay said, “I’ve not had any. …Nothing. It’s gorgeous. And reassuring. And the way it should be.”

It should be noted that while the character is queer, Marsay is white, which makes her experience different from some of the actors who came before her. And it’s also possible that she hasn’t experienced any Andor backlash because she’s not on social media. (“I’m just a bit rubbish technology-wise,” she shared. “I’m like, the worst millennial on earth. The struggle is real! Like, I can’t really properly put a post up. It takes me a while.”)

Nevertheless, Marsay is cognizant of the impact of representation. While she admits she “wasn’t thinking too much about it” during filming, “The further we got, the more myself and Varada [Sethu, her on-screen partner] were aware that we were the first openly written queer characters, and how important that was” to those who long to see themselves “mirrored” onscreen, the Game Of Thrones alum said.

“The way it was done wasn’t some big announcement,” she added. “Like I always say: people in the LGBTQI+ community, it’s been going on since the beginning of time; it’ll go on till the end of time. Andor was just normalising the normal. That’s it.”