One of the biggest stories surrounding the upcoming Star Wars spinoff has nothing to do with the film’s plot, but what happened behind the scenes.
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Rumors have been swirling about the departure of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from Solo: A Star Wars Story, replaced by Ron Howard for extensive reshoots. Some of those rumors have involved new Han Solo actor Alden Ehrenreich, and now he’s opened up about the unfortunately circumstances and cleared the air.
While speaking with Esquire in a new profile, Ehrenreich debunked rumors that he himself demanded the directors be fired to Kathleen Kennedy.
“That’s bullshit,” Ehrenreich said. “For a crew to do that would mean they hated [Lord and Miller], which was not by any stretch the case.”
Ehrenreich himself found out about the change from Lord and Miller.
“They said, ‘We were let go,’ and that’s it. They had mentioned there were some disagreements before, but they didn’t get into it,” Ehrenreich said. “They wished me the best with the rest of the movie. On a personal level, it felt emotional, for them to be going after we’d set out on that course together. Because I spent a lot of time with them, and we had a really good relationship—they also cast me. But I think at that point, they were kind of on board with [the decision], too. Like, ‘This is what’s happening.’ That’s not what they said to me, but that was the vibe I got.”
He also opened up about the supposed acting coach who came on board to help him, saying it had been mischaracterized. Apparently, Lord and Miller said they brought on Maggie Kelly to be used as a resource for themselves as well as the rest of the cast.
Before Howard came on board, tensions on set were a bit high, as Ehrenreich admitted. But the new director made the best of the situation.
“Everybody’s hackles are raised a bit, and Ron had this ability to come in and deal with morale and get everybody enthusiastic about, A, what we’d already shot, because I think his feeling was that a lot of what we’d already done was really good, and, B, the direction for the next piece of it. He knew how to navigate a tricky situation, and almost from the first or second day everybody pretty quickly recharged and got excited again about the movie,” Ehrenreich said.
For their work, Lord and Miller are taking credit as executive producers while Howard will take sole billing as director.
Solo: A Star Wars Story premieres in theaters on May 25th.
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