Hans flying Solo
starred with Ford. “George mostly just said, ‘Trust your instincts, I know you will be working fast but you’ll be fine.’ He reminded me to check in with the inner 12-year-old. That’s the great litmus test for these movies in his mind.” Howard also checked in with the famously reticent Ford, who has been living with the character for the past 40 years.
“I probed Harrison a little bit. Alden said Harrison was very gracious but he didn’t really tell him very much. I said [to Ford], ‘He’s in the middle of this and he’s feeling stress and anxiety. He mentioned you didn’t really offer a lot. And Harrison said, ‘He’s a really talented young actor. I didn’t want to hamstring him and tell him how he ought to play it, that would be so intimidating.’” At that point Howard probed some more, asking for Ford’s thoughts on what he calls “the paradox of Han Solo”.
So what did Ford reveal? Howard grins from underneath his baseball cap. “I don’t want to go into it because Harrison said, ‘Please don’t quote me on this.’ He anticipated this circumstance. But the paradox of the character. There is always a push and a pull. There’s his bravado and his ability and courage but there’s also a lack of confidence sometimes. Han Solo is the closest to an Earthling of any of those characters. More than Luke or Leia. He seems more like us in the way he gets himself in trouble, makes mistakes and bluffs his way through life.”
As for Ehrenreich, as the countdown begins to the world seeing his take on Han Solo, isn’t he a little worried? “You want me to be a nervous wreck?” he chuckles, exuding some of that Solo-like confidence. After six months of auditions and two-and-a-half years in total with the project, “You become familiar with the various pressures,” he shrugs. “It can become fun to ride the rocket.” Like the gambler that is Solo, Ehrenreich was ready to spin the wheel. “It’s more satisfying to either have a win or a loss.”
Solo: A Star Wars Story opens on Thursday.