Harrison Ford gave Alden Ehrenreich some advice on how to play Han Solo in the ‘Star Wars’ spin-off.
The 75-year-old screen legend first portrayed the fan favourite space smuggler in the original trilogy starting with ‘Episode IV: A New Hope’, and then reprised his role in 2015’s ‘The Force Awakens’ where his character was mercilessly killed by his own son Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
Now, Solo’s origin story is coming to the big screen in Ron Howard’s ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy has revealed that Ford met with Ehrenreich to give him some advice on taking on the mantle as the Millennium Falcon pilot, words which stayed with the 28-year-old actor.
Kennedy told Entertainment Weekly: "It was perfect, classic Harrison. Good kid, good kid. Really good kid. I think being who Harrison is, there is no way he would step into the middle of this and start trying to dictate. 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. 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 just Ehrenreich who spoke with the ‘Star Wars’ legend but also filmmaker Howard – who took over production after Chris Miller and Phil Lord left due to creative differences – wanted to know what Ford had learned about the character.
Howard said: "Harrison’s a very thoughtful actor and an artist, and I wanted to know what he learned about the character. 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."
Harrison Ford spoke with Alden Ehrenreich about Han Solo character
