Andor writer Beau Willimon led a Star Wars-inspired “One Way Out” chant following an impassioned speech at a Writers Guild of America (WGA) solidarity picket in New York City on August 24.
As reported by Deadline, former WGA east president Willimon joined Andor series creator Tony Gilroy on the picket line, where he empowered attendees by referencing the triumphs of writers in past strikes. He also quoted the critically acclaimed “One Way Out” episode of Andor that he wrote, leading the crowd into a refrain.
“The longer this strike goes, the tougher it gets, the stronger our solidarity must be, because we have an obligation not just to ourselves but to those who came before us and to those who come after us,” Willimon said. “And we know what the one way out is: It’s staying on these streets until we get a deal that’s fair.”
“One Way Out” is the tenth episode of Andor and arguably one of the most thrilling, as it sees (spoilers incoming) Cassian and Kino join forces with their fellow inmates to “act now” and forge ahead with an emotional riot during a daring escape of the prison they find themselves in, with “one way out” becoming the group’s iconic rallying cry.
Gilroy also delivered a powerful speech when he got on the mic, sharing his feelings on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) after their negotiations with the WGA appeared to collapse again this week, following a meeting earlier in the month where the two parties could not reach an agreement.
“If we’ve learned anything in the last 15 years, it is our value,” he said. “We are the content. It is our ideas. It’s our ideas that fill the theme parks and the toy stores. It’s our characters on the lunchboxes and the Halloween costumes. We are the natural resource from which the product is made, and we are tired of being strip-mined.”
He added: “We have one problem, and that’s that the AMPTP does not have their s**t together. They do not know what the f**k they are doing. We are facing across the table now a group of people who have never done this before. They’re doing this for the first time, and they have almost nothing in common but greed.”
Gilroy closed his remarks with the “one way out” phrase, only to be met by raucous cheers and applause. “We’re here, it’s our show, we cannot wait, we cannot stop, we cannot get weak”, he insisted before signing off with those three words, which have become synonymous with the show’s anti-establishment crusade.
The writers’ strike started at midnight on May 2, with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joining them on the picket line on July 14. It’s the first dual strike since 1960, with union members demanding fairer contact with producers and studios and better working conditions, including higher residuals and protections against AI technology, amongst many other things.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.