The controversy surrounding the upcoming “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is well documented. From the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller to the reports that new director Ron Howard came in and reshot almost every bit of film, there’s been a general feeling that this film has been in trouble for a long time. However, no one from the cast or crew has spoken publicly about that, until now.
In an interview on SiriusXM’s Jim Norton and Sam Roberts, actor Michael K. Williams was in the studio discussing his role in ‘Solo.’ The reason Williams is speaking up now is because the actor was in the unique position of being completely written out of the film during the transition from Lord and Miller to Howard.
READ MORE: ‘Solo’: Ron Howard Says Lord & Miller’s “Fingerprints Are All Over The Movie”
Asked to describe his character, and what happened, Williams was very candid. He described the CGI character as half-man, half-mountain lion. “[Dryden Vos] was extremely sophisticated. Very rich. He’d been around the world, older guy, and it was sort of a love triangle between Emilia Clarke’s character, Qi’Ra and the young Han Solo,” Williams said.
“Not where it was overtly a love triangle but there was definitely a pissing contest going on for the girl’s attention,” Williams continued. “And [Vos] is old and [Han] is younger so it was that thing also going on, like ‘Young buck, I’ve been around the world.’ But he’s like ‘The young chick wants the young buck.’ So there was a little bit of that energy going on. But the relationship on paper was definitely with Qi’Ra and Han Solo.”
After giving background and context to his character, he then described what it was like hearing from Lucasfilm that Ron Howard was taking over the film. Williams said that Howard told the studio, “If you want me to save [Vos], we’re going to have to reshoot it, in it’s entirety.” This meant that Williams, who had already moved on to another production, would have to completely reshoot his role, which he was contractually unable to do. Of course, as we now know, his character was given a makeover, and Paul Bettany was hired to replace Williams.
Finally, Williams just took a second to describe the situation. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit,” he said. “But [the ‘Solo’ situation] was one for the textbooks.”
There’s no doubt more cast and crew will be asked about the situation, and you have to imagine that Lucasfilm will have some responses prepared, but the truth is, we’ll never know the real story. All we can hope for is that the finished product is good.