10 Actors Who Could Play A Young Han Solo In The Upcoming Star Wars Spinoff

This week, surprising news broke that The LEGO Movie and 21 Jump Street helmers Phil Lord and Chris Miller would be taking on a Star Wars Anthology film centering around a young Han Solo. Not much is yet known about the project - though it's been reported that it is not the same film as the rumored Boba Fett/Han Solo movie Josh Trank was supposed to direct. Still, the talent behind it and subject matter are enough to get any Star Wars fan excited. With that excitement comes a wave of speculation, as the most important aspect of the film - the actor who will be tasked with playing the young iconic rogue - is to be determined. Whoever lands the coveted gig will not only need to fill the shoes left by Harrison Ford but make the role their own, which is no easy task, especially when considering the stakes that come with a role like this. With that said, here are ten actors we feel can live up to that task and don the jacket of the Millennium Falcon pilot. 10) Nick Robinson We don't yet know how young the new Han Solo will be, but if Lord and Miller are looking for an actor in his early twenties, they need look no further than Jurassic World actor Nick Robinson. Robinson began his acting career on the stage at the tender age of 11, and has since gone from being a series regular on ABC Family's Melissa & Joey to running away from CGI dinosaurs on the big screen. He's just the kind of unknown actor a role like this needs, and has shown in films like The Kings of Summer that he has the acting chops required for the role. Add the fact that he's already in the good graces of Lucasfilm president and executive producer Kathleen Kennedy, and he may already have his foot in the door for a major role like this. 9) Chris Pratt Speaking of Jurassic World, another dinosaur disaster survivor who could pilot the Millenium Falcon is Chris Pratt. Yes, Pratt's name has been tossed around quite a bit in the fan community for roles like Solo and Indiana Jones, and while we wrote a whole post about actors who should play the adventurous archaeologist instead of Pratt, there's no denying that he'd be great in the part of a young Harrison Ford. After all, Pratt practically is a young Harrison Ford - he's swiftly become one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, following some smaller TV work in shows like Parks and Recreation, and already showed his roguish charms behind the controls of a starfighter in Guardians of the Galaxy. He may be too big a star for the role - especially with big projects like more Guardians and Avengers films as well as Jurassic World sequels on the horizon - but he deserves a nod on this list nonetheless. 8) Scott Eastwood Scott Eastwood is currently poised to become one of Hollywood's new A-listers, and not just because he's the son of iconic actor/director Clint Eastwood. In fact, Eastwood originally tried avoiding nepotism by taking on his mother's last name, Reeves, but gave into the power of his surname later in his career. Eastwood has slowly risen through the ranks of Hollywood, first starring in smaller films like You Got Served, and has even worked under his father a few times, in movies like Flags of Our Fathers, Gran Torino and Invictus. His latest cinematic efforts were last year's Fury and the lead in this year's The Longest Ride, and he'll next join the DC Extended Universe with a highly-secretive role in David Ayer's Suicide Squad. Eastwood has the charm, looks and acting chops for the role of Han Solo, and while he has an iconic father, he himself is not yet famous enough to let that distract from his performance. 7) Liam McIntyre Liam McIntyre is another relative unknown with the charming smile of a young Han Solo. The Spartacus: Blood and Sand star has yet to get a foothold on the big screen, as his biggest cinematic role to date was in the critically derided The Legend of Hercules. McIntyre has shown his acting ability on television, however, as the lead of Starz' aforementioned Spartacus series, on various Australian programs like Neighbours and Rush, and most recently as Weather Wizard on The Flash. Through those various roles, McIntyre has shown his antihero side and exercised his ability to handle both comedy and action, which is extremely important for the role of Star Wars' resident scruffy-looking nerf herder. 6) Nat Wolff One young actor primed for a shot at a major character like Han Solo is twenty year old Nat Wolff. The actor/musician is perhaps best known for his role in Nickelodeon's The Naked Brothers Band and in 2014's The Fault in Our Stars, and has several upcoming projects on his plate like Behaving Badly, The Intern, Ashby, Paper Towns, and Grandma, all of which are scheduled to arrive this year. Wolff is currently primed for superstardom, and was at one point in contention for the role of the newly-rebooted Spider-Man (a role that went instead to Tom Holland). If he's on Marvel's radar, he's definitely on Disney's, which is nothing but beneficial for a young actor. 5) Jack Kilmer Another young actor who could handle himself next to a young Chewbacca is up-and-comer Jack Kilmer. Kilmer has only starred in a handful of projects (one of which, Palo Alto, also starred Nat Wolff), but has shown enough promise to earn a spot on our list. Most recently, his acting chops were on full display in The Stanford Prison Experiment, where he was able to stand out amongst bigger names like Ezra Miller, Mad Men's James Wolk, Tye Sheridan, Billy Crudup and Michael Angarano. As we mentioned before, the role of Han Solo would perhaps best to go an unknown, which worked well for Harrison Ford back in 1977. No actor on this list fits that bill better than Kilmer. 4) Taron Egerton Taron Egerton - the star of this year's Kingsman: The Secret Service - is another up-and-coming actor who benefits from his status as a relative unknown, and is currently on the path to stardom. He's wound up on fan wishlists for both X-Men and Spider-Man (expressing his own interest in both), and has two potentially high-profile projects on his slate: Legend, opposite Tom Hardy, and Eddie the Eagle, where he'll play Eddie Edwards, Great Britain's first ski jumper to enter the Winter Olympics. Egerton showed all of the qualities of a young Han Solo as newly-recruited Kingsman agent Eggsy Unwin. He not only showed off his parkour and fighting skills in the film's various creative action set pieces, but held his own against heavy hitters like Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Michael Caine and Star Wars alum Samuel L. Jackson. Add the fact that he was able to handle both the charisma and deeper emotional elements of his character, and you've got someone who could embody the role of Star Wars' resident rogue perfectly. He's not quite as unknown as some of the other young actors on this list, and is slightly older, which may give him a bit of an advantage should he ever wind up in contention for the role - which we sincerely hope he does. 3) Garrett Hedlund Garrett Hedlund is an actor we included in our Indiana Jones wishlist, and those same reasons land him a spot on this list as well. Hedlund has all of the qualities of a young Harrison Ford - from his looks to his devil-may-care stage presence - and already has a few cinematic rogues under his belt, from Inside Llewyn Davis' silent and brooding Johnny Five to the mack daddy of them all, On the Road's Dean Moriarty. Hedlund also showed that he can handle himself on various green screen stages in Tron: Legacy, which also means that he's already got his foot in the door at Disney. Now that Tron 3 has been cancelled, perhaps the House of Mouse will look to Hedlund - who did a pretty good job in the role of Sam Flynn - to take the wheel of another high-profile franchise instead. 2) Anton Yelchin Anton Yelchin is another actor we included in our Indiana Jones feature, and we feel that he deserves a spot on this list as well. After all, the Star Trek alum has already shown that he can handle himself on board a high speed spaceship and managed to navigate himself through the heavily damaged U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek Into Darkness despite the fact that he'd donned a red shirt, which is almost always a death sentence in that universe. That kind of survival instinct will come in handy if young Han Solo is to make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Despite key parts in franchises like Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation, Yelchin has yet to achieve leading man status. Still, he's turned in one memorable performance after another, and is the kind of young, charismatic, extremely talented actor that a film like this Han Solo spinoff needs. 1) Anthony Ingruber Of all the actors on this list, none are more primed to take the mantle of Han Solo from Harrison Ford than Anthony Ingruber. Not only does Ingruber look like a clone of a young Ford, but he sounds and acts like him too, which caught the attention of The Age of Adaline casting directors - who cast him in the role of a young William Jones, who was played by... yep, you guessed it, Harrison Ford. Ingruber even inadvertently provided the internet with a casting audition for the part back in 2008. He uploaded this take on Harrison Ford's introductory Star Wars Cantina scene to YouTube, and delivered a pretty impressive imitation of the actor, right down to the slight eyebrow motions and speech cadence. Sure, it's not required that the actor who lands the role to look and sound exactly like Harrison Ford (as evidenced by the inspired re-castings in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek), but why cast someone like Chris Pratt when there are Anthony Ingrubers in the world?