Alden Ehrenreich's clear struggles with nailing the Han Solo role in the film “Solo: A Star Wars Story” are very well known at this point. After all, replacing Harrison Ford is not an easy task. Ford is one of those actors that made some roles look easier than they were. It was all about charisma with him in roles ranging from Indiana Jones to Solo.
The behind-the-scenes drama couldn't have been fun for Ehrenreich, and in a recent interview, he only made us feel worse. Speaking to Esquire, Ehrenreich said the firing of directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were replaced by Ron Howard, was creatively confusing for him:
“They had a different style than Ron in terms of the way we were working,” says Ehrenreich.
He continued “From the first screen test on, we played around with it a lot. We tried a lot of different things, rethinking behind the scenes. That was yielding a different movie than the other factions wanted. I knew what I was doing, but in terms of what that adds up to, you’re so in the dark as an actor. You don’t know what it’s shaping up to be, how they’re editing it, so it’s kind of impossible without having seen those things to know what the difference [of opinion] was, or exactly what created those differences.”
Ehrenreich went on to say that he had issues with Lord and Miller. In fact, he actually learned they were fired through them:
“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. 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 does like what Ron Howard brought to the table: “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,” says the actor.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” opens May 25.