Billy Dee Williams was concerned he wouldn’t have the "same hunger" for playing Lando Calrissian in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ as he did in the original movies.
The 82-year-old actor is set to return to the iconic role almost 40 years after he first appeared in 1980’s ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, and has admitted he spent a long time deciding whether to accept the invitation to return for the upcoming final movie, because he didn’t know if he would be able to cope on the film set.
He said: "[I was thinking] ‘Do I have that same hunger, excitement, that I had years earlier?’ This is a very difficult time for me, as far as age is concerned. When you get to be a certain age, whether you want to think about mortality or not, you think about it."
Ahead of the movie’s release later this month, not much is known about Lando’s appearance in the project, and Billy isn’t giving away any hints.
But the star has been thinking about what the captain might have been doing in the years since his last appearance in the sci-fi franchise.
He added: "I always imagined Lando being like Steve Wynn, running Las Vegas. Because he’s a gambler. But he was a bit of a showman, a bit of an entrepreneur. That’s how I see Lando. I never necessarily saw him as a general running around shooting things."
And Billy has teased that the movie marks a "conclusion", not only for the main series of ‘Star Wars’ films, but possibly for Lando too.
Speaking to Esquire magazine, he said: "It’s a conclusion – certainly it depends on how much money is generated. That’s when they determine where’s the conclusion. The one thing about show business, you can resurrect anything."
Billy Dee Williams wasn’t sure if he’d return to the Star Wars franchise
