Solo: Alden Ehrenreich Admits Star Wars Is “Not a Huge Part” of His Life Anymore

Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn’t the smoothest production for Kathleen Kennedy and her team at Lucasfilm. Nearly three-quarters the way through filming, the studio fired Phil Lord and Christopher Miller due to creative differences and around the same time, reports began to surface suggesting the production house had to hire an acting coach to help Solo star Alden Ehrenreich boost his performance for the film. That’s not even counting the film’s ice-cold box office haul, where it brought in just under $400 million globally, making it the lowest-grossing movie in the history of the Star Wars franchise.

Now, some two-and-a-half years after its release, Ehrenreich says the movie is no longer a huge part of is life as he’s chosen to move on from the role of Han Solo and pursue other opportunities, in a galaxy much, much closer to the rest of us.

“It’s not a huge part of my life anymore,” he said in a recent profile with The Independent. “But my sense is that there was a really clear disconnect between the way it was really received and then the stories that came out about it. That we had a troubled production or whatever. And it’s not really a story that the movie did totally fine. It didn’t make a billion dollars but it did fine and people liked it – but that’s not interesting. What’s interesting is: ‘This is the biggest movie of all time and it was absolutely a disaster.’ I knew, no matter what happened, that I was putting myself in a situation where people would be saying things about me. But honestly, that whole experience felt like this huge, high-seas adventure.”

While Ehrenreich has moved on from playing Solo, he’s using the movie’s status as a stepping stone — as a learning point as he moves further into his career in Hollywood.

“Even the low points, like the whole drama of it. It’s so not consequential ultimately, and I always kind of dreamed of that. Like even the fact that we’re talking about this is exactly the kind of life I wanted when I was a kid, you know? To be an actor and be in movies and living the ups and downs. It’s not interesting if there aren’t those lows,” he added. “When somebody’s at the end of their career, all people talk about are the successes, and not all the ones that flop.”

Solo: A Star Wars Story is now streaming on Disney+.