Harrison Ford’s Role on ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Revealed

Harrison Ford has said for decades that he wished Han Solo had died in the original trilogy of Star Wars films, a wish that filmmaker George Lucas ignored. His character was finally killed off in The Force Awakens, allowing the actor to distance himself from the saga that helped launch his career. Despite that distance from the franchise, Ford reportedly helped advise both Alden Ehrenreich‘s performance and the overall approach to exploring the character’s origins in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

“Tell them I told you everything you needed to know, and that you can’t tell anyone,” Ehrenreich revealed to Entertainment Weekly of advice he received from Ford about the role. “I gotta stick to my orders from the man himself.”

The actor did recount some of the conversationto Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who shared more details about the important discussion.

“It was perfect, classic Harrison,” Kennedy says, while impersonating Ford’s voice, “‘Good kid, good kid. Really good kid.’”

Kennedy also pointed out that the dialogue between the two actors even continued throughout filming.

“What [Ford] did so beautifully for Alden was he talked a lot about what he remembered when he first read Star Wars, and what George had done with Han. Who the character was and the conversations he had for so many years with George about how that character developed,” Kennedy revealed. “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. I think that was really, really helpful to him.”

Fans grew anxious upon the announcement that Ron Howard was replacing original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller with weeks left of shooting, but Howard knew a great place to begin exploring the character would be to reach out to Ford.

“Harrison’s a very thoughtful actor and an artist, and I wanted to know what he learned about the character,” Howard shared. “He said that Han is always torn between that sense that he was, in a way, an orphan, and therefore both yearned for connection with people and struggled with it at the same time. I thought that was pretty interesting.”

Ford reportedly went on to describe how those origins influenced not only his performance but felt they required attention in Solo.

“Han has survived and proven that he can survive, but he’s never sure he’s as quite as smart as he needs to be,” Howard explained. “Change that. He’s not really ‘smart.’ That’s not the word he used. Han’s not as on top of it as he needs to be. So he wants to give the appearance of [control], but in fact, he’s often scrambling. I think Harrison played that beautifully, and Alden and I talked about both of those ideas a lot.”

Solo: A Star Wars Story lands in theaters May 25.

[H/T Entertainment Weekly]