The actor who plays Timm on Andor actually played another Star Wars character in The Force Awakens

It turns out that James McArdle, despite having a jealous lover’s heart in Andor, is a completely different character with completely different motivations in The Force Awakens. In The Force Awakens, the actor took on the very small role of Niv Lek. While not much is revealed about this particular character throughout the film, he is worth mentioning, if only because he takes part in the resistance assault on Starkiller Base, which is an absolutely critical engagement.

Piloting a T-70 X-wing starfighter, Lek flies over Starkiller Base during the daring attack to stop the superweapon that is making the Death Star look like a jack-in-the-box. The character’s name is actually “Kelvin,” spelled backwards, in a nod to The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams’ grandfather, Harry Kelvin (per Wag Magazine). If you thought this tidbit sounded familiar, that’s because the alternate universe created by Abrams’ 2009 film is commonly referred to as the Kelvin timeline on the “Star Trek” side of sci-fi franchises , as explained by Space.com, as it spawns after the USS Kelvin is destroyed.

The character of Lek is definitely a far cry from who McArdle plays in Andor, mostly because the direct flight to Starkiller Base requires a lot of guts and the potential for self-sacrifice, while McArdle’s character in Andor is pretty cowardly. On a positive note, McArdle’s joining the Star Wars franchise is the culmination of a childhood dream, as reported by iNews.

One wonders if McArdle will continue to appear in Star Wars objects considering he was already a Resistance X-wing pilot and jealous lover. Maybe a Sith or Jedi role could be next?