Some surprising news has been revealed in Entertainment Weekly’s latest article from their “Solo: A Star Wars Story” cover issue, as they reveal that Harrison Ford played a small advisory role to Alden Ehrenreich and Ron Howard in their preparation for the film.
Here is how both Kathleen Kennedy and Ron Howard describe Harrison’s contributions to the film to Entertainment Weekly:
Kathleen Kennedy on Harrison’s response to meeting Alden Ehrenreich and reading the script, which he gave a thumbs up to- “It was perfect, classic Harrison,” Kennedy says, breaking into his signature low-key grumble. “‘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 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.”
Ron Howard on speak with Harrison about Han Solo- “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.”
“Han has survived and proven that he can survive, but he’s never sure he’s as quite as smart as he needs to be. Change that. He’s not really ‘smart.’ That’s not the word he used. Han’s not as on top of it as he needs to be. So he wants to give the appearance of [control], but in fact, he’s often scrambling. I think Harrison played that beautifully, and Alden and I talked about both of those ideas a lot.”
It turns out that Harrison Ford played a bigger role than I ever thought he would in helping with “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” as I figured he really wouldn’t be involved with it at all. But I think it’s really cool he did end up being a small advisor to two of the most important people working on the film, and that he provided some valuable information to them both.
Be sure to check out the full article on Harrison Ford’s involvement with “Solo: A Star Wars Story” over at Entertainment Weekly.
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