Alden Ehrenreich has huge shoes to fill when it comes to playing Han Solo in “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” Fan expectations are one thing, but it’s arguably more daunting living up to the man himself — Harrison Ford. Taking on the role of the smuggler wasn’t something the young actor was going to do without meeting the man first. And Ford, who knows a thing or two about keeping secrets, offered Ehrenreich the one line he’ll need to carry him through the press tour of the picture:
“Tell them I told you everything you needed to know, and that you can’t tell anyone.”
With that in mind, Ehreinreich mostly stuck to his guns in his chat with EW, but reveals how important it was to gain Ford’s seal of approval. “I wanted to meet him because I just felt generally it wouldn’t be right to do the movie without some kind of contact with him, and I’m really glad I did. He was very, very supportive. And it’s just cool to have lunch with Harrison Ford,” he explained.
As for the practical advice Ford provided, the filmmakers shared that the veteran actor’s longtime association not just with the character, but the franchise, proved valuable.
“What [Ford] did so beautifully for Alden was he talked a lot about what he remembered when he first read ‘Star Wars,’ and what George [Lucas] had done with Han. Who the character was and the conversations he had for so many years with George about how that character developed,” Kathleen Kennedy told the magazine. “He gave Alden that kind of insight which was invaluable. There were several times in the course of making the movie where Alden would actually recount some of the things that Harrison had pointed out. I think that was really, really helpful to him.”
It wasn’t only Ehrenreich who spoke with Ford, but Ron Howard as well, who quickly jumped into ‘Solo’ when original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller suddenly exited. And he found that Ford was willing to open up and share his thoughts about Han, which helped Howard tackle the movie.
“Harrison’s a very thoughtful actor and an artist, and I wanted to know what he learned about the character,” Howard said. “He said that Han is always torn between that sense that he was, in a way, an orphan, and therefore both yearned for connection with people and struggled with it at the same time. I thought that was pretty interesting.”
“Han has survived and proven that he can survive, but he’s never sure he’s as quite as smart as he needs to be,” the director added. “Change that. He’s not really ‘smart.’ That’s not the word he used. Han’s not as on top of it as he needs to be. So he wants to give the appearance of [control], but in fact, he’s often scrambling. I think Harrison played that beautifully, and Alden and I talked about both of those ideas a lot.”
Fascinating stuff, and we’ll see how it all plays when “Solo: A Star Wars Story” opens on May 25th.