After a good two weeks of drama around the HAN SOLO movie, it seems Ron Howard has righted the ship and gotten everything back on track. Still, that doesn’t mean some members of the cast didn’t feel weird about the scenario, and though we haven’t heard much from the likes of Alden Ehrenreich (Solo) or Emilia Clarke, the young Lando Calrissian himself, Donald Glover, shared his thoughts on the issue.
While talking with THR about his meteoric rise to superstardom, Glover was asked about the massive directorial shift when HAN SOLO directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller left the project, with Howard replacing them. The actor is getting the job done, for sure, but according to him performing in front of a new director came with its share of anxiety:
Ron is such a legend, and he knows exactly what the vision for what he is doing is … [but Phil and Chris] hired us, so you sort of feel like, "I know I'm not your first choice …" And you worry about that. To be honest, I don't know exactly what happened. I feel like I was the baby in the divorce, or the youngest child. The oldest child is like, "We know what's happening, but we are keeping you out of it." And I'm just like, [Glover's voice rises several octaves] "Was that scene good? How did you feel?"
Glover may have felt a little weird acting for Howard, but when it came to delivering a great Lando performance he had plenty of ammo in his belt. He even recalled a lunch he had with original Lando, Billy Dee Williams, and mentioned how he shared all his ideas for the character with the actor. Williams politely listened, ultimately telling him to keep it simple:
I was like, "I've always felt like this character could do this, and he represents this, and I kind of feel like he comes from here, and it's very obvious he has a lot of taste, so maybe he grew up seeing that from afar? Because I'm like that. Maybe he saw it from other planets and was like, 'I want to be that.'" He just let me ramble on and on, and then finally I was like, "So, what do you think?" And he goes, "Yeah, I don't know about all that. Just be charming."
Charming is certainly in Glover’s wheelhouse, and though performing for a new director may have been odd at first all signs show Howard, with the help of his band of actors, guided the production with masterful ease, and will continue to helm the movie through reshoots. I can only imagine the stress on the actors after all the drama surrounding the production, but clearly all these men and women are pros, so anxieties aside they have been able to keep it together and deliver the goods. Hey, as long as Glover followed Billy Dee's advice we'll be all good.
HAN SOLO is set for May 2018.