When Alden Ehrenreich walked into the room he seemed to have been throw off by our applause, or at least I thought so, but he explained that he had just been surprised by Harrison Ford while doing the interview right before ours so he was still in a “daze” (video can be found below). Alden hadn’t seen Harrison since they had lunch together before shooting began, so he was pretty happy to see Harrison. When we asked what Harrison thought of the movie, Alden said…
“He loved it, he thought it was awesome, he thought it worked like gangbusters. He thought I was really great and he said I’m going to make hundreds and hundreds of dollars.”
On that note, here is what Alden Ehrenreich had to say about his role as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Shooting the pilot scenes was one of the best parts for him.
“There’s kind of two things that are really cool. One, is that you sit down and it’s really fun and you can’t believe you’re there and it’s really surreal…And the other thing is about two months in and you’re in there every day and you realize you kind of know what button does what and you know how the yoke feels and you know how the chair sits and you kind of feel like it’s yours.”
Joonas (Chewbacca) and Alden spent a lot of time training together.
“So the way we meet (in the movie) involves a lot of work, so we spent a lot of time together, we were kind of the only cast members who were there in advance so we ended up just hanging out and doing stunt training and boxing and stuff like that together for a long time, which was really great…he’s the whole package. He’s seven feet tall with blue eyes, he went to film school, he is hilarious. He’s just perfect for it. I don’t think everyone even realizes the amount that he has to do technically and also he has this big heart and exudes that and you really feel it.”
Fun fact: While he does read a lot, he does not read a book a week as some have assumed.
He’s never seen Game of Thrones before but he really loved working with Emilia Clarke.
“So I haven’t seen Game of Thrones…but I’m definitely a fan of hers. She’s really wonderful, incredibly talented, and sweet as could be. I mean, she brought in baked goods for the whole crew like every single Monday…she’s just yeah she’s super sweet and warm.
She was probably the person that I was most kind of on this journey with, in a sense. Because we spent so much time together and our work was so involved that we ended up spending a lot of time together and it was a blast, it was really sweet and I’m very grateful to have that partnership with her.”
His favorite Star Wars film is Empire Strikes Back.
“I love Yoda a lot. I just think it’s really cool to have a movie with so much real wisdom in it and this kind of deep philosophical background that’s put into terms that are so clear and communicable to so many people. And it’s just cool.”
Fun Fact: Alden shared something I never knew. “The line is No, I’m your father. It’s not Luke, I’m your father.” (MIND BLOWN)
He remembers the first time he watched a Star Wars and what he felt.
“I loved it, I was five, I think and I saw it on VHS, and I had all the toys and all the action figures and pretended. In fact, you know, when I got to do my screen test on the Millennium Falcon, it was so familiar to me from just imagining that I was on it as a kid, it kind of put me at ease. Walking through the hallway and the everything and all this stuff.”
Here’s the video of Harrison Ford surprising Alden Ehrenreich:
Want to know more about Solo: A Star Wars Story? Check out my post on the Solo: A Star Wars Story world premiere, my movie review and be sure to check back for my interviews with Emilia Clarke (“Qi’ra”), Director Ron Howard, Paul Bettany (“Dryden Vos”), Joonas Suotamo (“Chewbacca”), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“L3-37”) and Woody Harrelson (“Tobias Beckett”).
Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters on May 25th!
Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY, an all-new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo befriends his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and meets the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga’s most unlikely heroes
