Solo: A Star Wars Story is one of those projects from the Mouse House era that fans generally prefer not to think about, even though most of them would admit Alden Ehrenreich did a wonderful job of bringing a younger Han Solo to life on the big screens. But while every viewer indeed breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Ehrenreich’s dedication to the role, Lucasfilm apparently had someone else in mind to play the scruffy looking nerf-herder.
The star of The King’s Man recently sat down for a conversation with Josh Horowitz, where he revealed that Disney initially wanted him to portray Han in his solo outing (pun intended), but he turned them down because he didn’t feel like the role was meant for him.
“I felt like that… I felt that– I mean, I’ll be honest, I got on the Falcon. I was with Chewie. I was in the full costume, and… you know what, that’s what I felt like. I felt like I got there, I did it, I lived it. And there was one more, there was another round that I decided not to do. And it’s far enough in the past now that I feel like I can say that. I hope no one feels annoyed that I have said it. But it just felt to me like I didn’t feel… like you know when we mentioned earlier that thing when I read the Kingsman script and I was like, ‘I’ve gotta do this. This is my part.’ I just didn’t feel it.”
Taron Egerton as Han Solo will probably go down as a What if…? scenario for a lot of Star Wars fans from now on, but the actor was wise to turn down the role. He could have, after all, made an easy buck playing in one of the most popular franchises in history, but at least now it went to someone who put a lot of effort into picking up Harrison Ford’s gestures and body language.
Not that it mattered, anyway, as Solo is not only the lowest grossing Star Wars movie of all time, but probably the least-watched too.