By now, most of us have heard the wild story of how Michael K. Williams got replaced by Paul Bettany in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Two directors got fired, a new one was hired, reshoots happened immediately… it was all a big mess. What you may not have heard, though, is Williams talk specifically about his character’s role in the film. If even part of his story remains in the film through Bettany, it should be very interesting.
Qi’Ra and Han having a quiet drink in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Photo: Disney
Williams appeared on Sirius XM’s Jim and Sam show yesterday and talked about how his character Dryden Vos, who he described as “half mountain lion, half human”
(we’re not sure if we should take that literally, by the way), would have challenged the dynamic between Han Solo, played by Alden Ehrenreich, and Qi’Ra, played by Emilia Clarke.
“He was extremely sophisticated. Very rich. He’d been around the world, older guy, and it was sort of a love triangle between Emilia Clarke’s character, Qi’Ra and the young Han Solo,” Williams said.
Well, sort of.
“Not where it was overtly a love triangle but there was definitely a pissing contest going on for the girl’s attention,” Williams continued. “And [Vos] is old and [Han] is younger so it was that thing also going on, like ‘Young buck, I’ve been around the world.’ But he’s like ‘The young chick wants the young buck.’ So there was a little bit of that energy going on. But the relationship on paper was definitely with Qi’Ra and Han Solo.”
While Bettany stepped into the film with the same character name as Williams, we still don’t know if any other details remained. For his part, Williams (like all of us) was surprised by the events as they unfolded. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit,” he said. “But [what happened with Solo] was one for the textbooks.”
You can read about that here, or just watch the rest of the clip below.
Solo: A Star Wars Story opens May 24.
[YouTube]