HARDLY A SOLO PROJECT
Many hands involved in bringing Star Wars favourite to the big screen
LOS ANGELES Lawrence Kasdan remembers precisely when he fell for Han Solo.
“From the moment I was relatively young and I first saw (him) in the cantina,” said the Hollywood legend known for his screenwriting work on Star Wars classics The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Big Chill (which he also directed) and now Solo: A Star Wars Story.
He was referring to the character Harrison Ford made famous, beginning with the famous bar scene in the original 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.
“I immediately sparked to him,” said Kasdan, who wrote the latest spinoff of the storied franchise with his son Jonathan.
“He lifted up the whole movie instantly. I loved the movie, but at that moment I thought, ‘Oh, this movie is happening.’ This is the kind of character I’ve loved, always, that is so important in all the movies I care about — a character that’s reckless, cynical, doesn’t trust anybody, who’s a little bit stupid. I love that.
“He just does things he shouldn’t do and gets in over his head, instantly. You can see that brilliantly in George Lucas’ cantina scene. It’s just a few minutes and you get everything about who this guy is.” Jonathan agreed.
“I think he wanted me to write this with him because (that’s what) I am,” he joked, explaining that his father asked him to join the project for a couple of reasons.
“Because I shared his deep love of this and I came at it from a totally different place than Larry,” he said. “I had grown up with Star Wars, playing with the toys, and he thought that between our two dynamics — me as a fan and him as an older Jedi master — we could figure out some sort of a dynamic where we could forge a story we felt was both very contemporary and true to the spirit of Solo.”
The long-standing history of the Star Wars saga and the personal connections people have to it formed a running theme at a news conference for Solo: A Star Wars
Story, earlier this month.
Alden Ehrenreich had the unenviable task of stepping into Ford’s shoes with the eyes of the world on him. Getting the iconic actor’s approval alleviated a lot of pressure.
“Oh my god,” Ehrenreich said, recalling their meeting, which happened before shooting began in January, 2017. “I wanted to talk to Harrison to pay respect and have him give us his blessing. We had lunch … He was really encouraging and supportive. Then we went off and shot the film.”
Meeting the original Han Solo was one thing. Stepping into the elaborate Star Wars universe and aboard Solo’s iconic vessel was another.
“It was wild, exciting, bigger than I can wrap my head around,” Ehrenreich said. “Being in the Millennium Falcon was very, very cool. Getting in the cockpit, I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m in it; it’s so surreal.’ Everyone who visits the set wants to have that experience.
“Then a couple of months into shooting in it, you’re inside it, flying it, you know where the buttons are and how the chair moves and you feel like, ‘OK, this is my ship.” It’s deeply gratifying.”
Thandie Newton’s initial experience with Star Wars dates back to early childhood.
“I was seven when the (second) movie came out, I’ll never forget it,” said the British actress, who plays Val, member of a crew of renegades led by Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett.
“That scroll of white going onto black, John Williams’ music — that stuff imprints on your psyche. I think it goes so far beyond even us as filmmakers. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.”
Playing the part of Han Solo’s rascally old pal Lando Calrissian was a childhood dream come true for Donald Glover, who was the same age as Newton when he first fell under the Star Wars spell.
“Like any seven-year-old boy, of course I pretended to be Darth Vader,” he said. “He had a lightsaber but I bit it off and gave it to Lando. My mom wouldn’t let me have the lightsaber anymore. She thought I’d choke on it.”
When Glover heard that a series of Star Wars anthology films was in the works, he began to believe his childhood fantasy could become reality.
“I told my agent, ‘If they ’re making anything with Lando in it, I have to be Lando,’” said Glover, who has been making waves in recent weeks with the viral music video to his alter ego Childish Gambino’s song This is America.
“Really, it was the only role I wanted in the world. I’m so happy to be part of this experience. It’s really cool.
“It filled this Star Wars longing; it does feel like the Bible to me, in a lot of ways.”