Article content continued

I told my agent, ‘If I find out someone else is Lando, I’m going to fire you’ (laughs). Listen, there were rumblings about it. They were doing auditions. They hadn’t even found Han yet. But I just started getting ready and focusing. I felt that I had to get this. It was something I was meant to do. Or at least try my hardest. I didn’t want to look back and think I wasn’t really prepared.

When Star Wars fans get to see Solo, they’re going to see a different side of Lando. He’s got that unbridled, youthful enthusiasm.

Yeah, he hasn’t really been bruised by life yet. It’s nice to see those people as kids because it’s fun to see them make mistakes and try things out and see them not having it all together. That’s the cool part. I always loved Young Indiana Jones. And I remember when I was a kid there was also James Bond Jr. I loved both of those just because you got to see them make mistakes, which is cool.

How did you want to put your own stamp on the character?

I’m already different (laughs). I’m already not going to be Billy Dee Williams. The timing and what he meant in that moment and coming in for Empire Strikes Back … I just thought of what I was doing as something fresh. I looked at it in terms of what would I want to see if I was a kid.

Did you seek out any advice from Billy Dee Williams?

We went to lunch. I had a bunch of ideas about Lando and where he was supposed to be from and I went in with notes of things I read in various books. I had all this stuff to say and he literally just let me ramble on and on and then I stopped and he said, ‘Just be charming. People want to be around someone who is charming.’ I don’t even think he was looking at me. It was a perfect meld of Billy Dee and Lando that just told me, ‘You’re overthinking it.’ It was so simple and I felt super safe after that.