Harrison Ford has been known for 40 years as Han Solo, but this year he will hand the blaster over to Alden Ehrenreich in “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” It turns out Ford had some sage advice to give to the “Hail, Caesar!” star on how to play the scruffy-looking nerf herder.
Ehrenreich said in an Entertainment Weekly interview that he and Ford had lunch shortly before filming began last year, and that he said to “tell them I told you everything you needed to know, and that you can’t tell anyone.”
Because of that, Ehrenreich decided to keep his lips zipped on exactly what sort of pointers Ford gave him. But Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy shared some insight, saying she had spoken with Ford about Ehrenreich and that the elder actor passed on some important tidbits about Han’s past that he was told by George Lucas when he first read the script for the original “Star Wars” back in 1977.
“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,” Kennedy said. “I think that was really, really helpful to him.”
“Solo” hits theaters May 25.