Unlike Rogue One and its own standalone story, Solo: A Star Wars Story has been burdened with great expectation from day one – not least because it involves crafting a backstory to one of the most iconic characters in film history. No pressure, right?
It’s a credit to Ron Howard, then, that Solo has already garnered strong praise from industry critics (expect full reviews to drop tomorrow), though lead star Alden Ehrenreich only wanted to impress one person: Harrison Ford.
The Star Wars veteran was seemingly on-hand during the early days of production in order to help Ehrenreich settle into the role. But now that the end product is teetering on the verge of release, Alden Ehrenreich has revealed that Ford “genuinely loved” the movie, echoing comments made by both Billy Dee Williams and Mark Hamill.
It’s just such a huge deal to have him really genuinely love it. He really genuinely enjoyed the film, and it meant a lot to me that he took the time to come out here and do that.Right before we started shooting, I wanted to talk to Harrison [Ford], just to kind of pay respect and have him give us the blessing for the film. So we had lunch, I guess, two years ago, and he was really encouraging and really supportive, and then we went off and shot the film.
As for what it’s like to set foot in the Millennium Falcon, well, Ehrenreich admits to being a little overwhelmed at first, though after a couple of weeks on set he was beginning to find his groove as the ship’s newfound captain.
You get in, and you can’t believe you’re in it. It’s so surreal… And a couple months into shooting it, you’re inside of it. You’re flying it. You know where the buttons are and how the chair feels. You’re like, ‘Okay, this is kind of like my ship now.’ It’s deeply gratifying.
Solo: A Star Wars Story shoots for theaters May 25th. And it may well spawn the beginning of a new prequel trilogy for Lucasfilm.
