Getting up close with the stars of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’

Los Angeles — We didn’t need to travel to a universe far far away to get to know up close the stars of the Ron Howard-helmed American space Western film, “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”

READ: 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' puts the essential scoundrel in an inessential film

We just had to go to the Pasadena Convention Center to meet Alden Ehrenreich who is portraying the young Han Solo, Emilia Clarke who is playing Qi’ra, Donald Glover who is acting as Lando Calrissian and director Ron Howard.

Below are excerpts of our conversation with them:

Alden Ehrenreich (Han Solo)

All photos courtesy of Janet Susan R. Nepales/HFPA

On the movie evoking dreams he never knew he had like becoming a pilot like Harrison Ford:

Harrison, who didn’t fly when he shot the originals, started flying later in life. I get it.  I have spent a little time working with some pilots on this and flew in a cockpit of a plane. I understand it. It’s an amazing feeling. So I don’t know that I am going to go about getting my license, but I definitely, from this experience, feel more of that than ever.

On his favorite sequences:

I don’t know that in this story, Han Solo really feels that he is Han Solo. I think it’s that he is still finding that thing for himself with the exception of, there’s a certain transcendent forgetting of himself when he is flying. There is a certain thing about flying that makes him feel that that’s where he is meant to be and less self-aware. 

Those experiences of flying in the Falcon and being in the cockpit were so much fun. It’s so cool to do. It feels that the little kid in you is screaming and freaking out. It’s a dream. For the character too, those sequences, whenever the flying is happening is like a dream. In the movie, there is some different flying that happens and that was part of the design of the movie. That when he sits down with the Falcon, it’s like having six bad relationships and then finding the real one.

On his fond memories of his mom:

My mom introduced me to movies when I was a little kid. We watched these mini film festivals at home of John Wayne movies, Charlie Chaplin movies and Marx Brothers. She loves film. She loves John Wayne. Turner Classic Movies was always on. We would always be watching that. She also took me to a lot of museums as a kid, which at first was boring.  But then one day she said let’s just walk through and tell me which ones you don’t like. Then I started going, oh I don’t like that one and I don’t like that one. And oh I really love that one. We would talk about it and she ushered me into an appreciation of art.

On three movies that influenced him:

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” is one of them. I watched that a lot as a kid and those were just the coolest guys to me. That movie is so great.  There’s a great documentary about the making of that that I saw while we were shooting.  “Godfather” is another. You just look at those guys and you are 12 and you are like these are the coolest guys. I want to be like them.  My favorite movies are “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Five Easy Pieces.” As I got older, Jimmy Stewart is just one of my favorite actors.  I love him so much.

Emilia Clarke (Qi’ra)

On the easiest one to work with – Dragons or Chewbacca

What’s easier to work with? My goodness. Well, Chewbacca’s better behaved, I must admit.

On the use of the green screen in sequences:

It’s so funny because with “Game of Thrones” we created that environment. We started everything that was there. So when I go back and I revisit different seasons, the family gets back together every year. It feels familiar in a way that I understand so much is because we created that physical space where before it had just only existed in people’s imaginations.

Whereas with “Star Wars” what you have is something akin to Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. You know it’s hallowed ground. It is magical and it’s the stuff dreams are made of. So when you walk onto that set and when you’re dealing with these beloved characters that you grew up knowing intimately, it’s just different. You pinch yourself. You feel six years old, joy.

On the difficulty of trusting people when you become more famous:

In the show, I’m incredibly blonde and naturally, I’ve got dark hair. So I got to fly under the radar and really see people talking to me as a human being as opposed to as an actor. What started to happen quite a lot is, I would be having a conversation with somebody who wouldn’t know who I was so you’re going to get the truth out of them.

My very good friends are my very good friends and have been for well over 15 years so that’s my circle of friends.  I’m very lucky that I get to do amazing jobs like this and meet really great people where that doesn’t need to come into play too much.

Fame is a very fickle thing that will be there one minute and will be gone the next and I’m incredibly aware of that. So to not create too much of yourself based on that fact is really important. You can’t let it be something that defines you or your relationships because it’s not always going to be the case.

Donald Glover (Lando Calrissian)

On the importance of “Star Wars” to him growing up:

It was pretty important. My father imprinted it on me. I knew the stories probably better than the Bible. Really early on, my dad gave me a Lando toy and I had a Darth Vader toy. I bit the light saber toy off and tried to give it to Lando, and it’s a very classic story. So it really helped a lot with the way I learn stories and what was important.  It was pretty pivotal.

On letting his dad know when he got a chance to be in a “Star Wars” movie:

Yeah, I immediately called my dad.  Because I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody. They were like do not tell anybody. It’s top secret. I was like absolutely, and then immediately called my dad and told him. It was like a dream.  It feels very full circle to see my son play with me.

On how Lando represents him:

I definitely consider myself sort of a charmer. I think Lando understands that everybody likes to be wanted. That is a very natural part of it. Han is like a cowboy, who will come in and be like this is my way or the highway kind of brash, which is cool and sexy in one way. But Lando is like you can get a lot more flies with honey.  You can get more done with people just wanting to do it and he’s a lot more political. That’s true. I found that to be reflected and it was really cool to play a character that was just considered smooth and sexy. Unless I write them for myself, I never get to do that and play a character where it’s like that is all you are supposed to be.  I was really happy to do it.

On how he keeps up with his various projects:

I don’t know, I don’t think I have ever been a really good multi-tasker.  I give something 102 percent when I am on it.  Then I go to the next thing.

In my room I might have a laptop where I am listening to my music and working, and I also might have an outline on the wall. So they tend to influence each other and personally, I feel like I go through periods. Like right now, I feel like my music sounds like the stuff I am writing right now to me. The stuff I am writing feels like my perception of acting right now and they are all moods.

I feel like I am going through almost to me, a lot of it feels like the jungle to me, a lot of nature and things fighting each other in a very organic way. I keep looking for that in a lot of the work, like what is the organic thing, because there is so much technology. But at the end of the day, this is all just these things trying to eat each other and trying to survive. All these things influence each other. I do them as they come to me.

On how he connects music with acting and how they help each other:

They always. All of them always felt the same to me to help people to understand. I always said like, different high schools, all of them are different high schools, but the cooler kids are different and the codes of how people talk and the culture of the schools are different. I just learned that everything is tone and everything are the things that are unspoken that really matter.

Lyrics are great, words on a page are great, but they are really conveying what you are supposed to feel, all of them. So you just start to learn to read in-between the lines and is this feeling like this? My songs, my movie, anything, I feel like is this feeling like this? Because that is everything, like sound and roller coasters. Everything is just the feeling of up and down, that’s life. So it taught me tone, the speaking without speaking.

Ron Howard (Director)

On his first meeting with Harrison Ford in “American Grafitti”:

Very charismatic then but a very different personality than Alden. Harrison is very thoughtful, very funny but plays his cards very close to his vest so to speak. Alden is much more of a very active kind of student. What they have in common is the charisma, the good looks, the charm but their personalities are very different in terms of the way that they work.

What was great for Alden of course, he not only had the Harrison performances to consider and look at but he also had this script written by Larry and John Kasden. Larry understands the rhythms and the feel of the Han Solo character so beautifully that Alden has a huge advantage.

On his favorite “Star Wars” character:

I think Yoda. Yoda always fascinated me, I loved his philosophy. I loved how unlikely a hero he was, unlikely a warrior and yet so credible to me. I’ve always wished I could somehow have access to someone with that sort of wisdom. So I think that’s the character that’s always fascinated me the most.

On his first time he saw “Star Wars”:

I saw it at the Chinese Theater in ’77. I was working on “Happy Days” then so I couldn’t go on Friday night but I went Saturday morning and my wife Cheryl and I saw it at 10 o’clock in the morning at the Chinese Theatre. We had to stand in line for a couple of hours. We were so blown away by the movie that when we walked out, even though there were lines around the block I just said, that was great, do you want to see it again? She said absolutely. We literally got in another two hour line. So we spent our entire day either standing in line or watching “Star Wars”.

It was a great experience because it blew my mind because I hadn’t felt that transported by a movie maybe ever. It promised what a movie maker could be. I already knew I was going to do “Grand Theft Auto” for Roger Corman. My dream was to be a director and that dream was coming true. But to see this was like another dimension of possibility. — LA, GMA News