Every Actor in Existence has Auditioned for the Role of Han Solo in Star Wars Spin-Off
It might be a bold claim but when you’ve got such a beloved character to up the legacy of, well, you kinda want to get it right.
The hunt for the new Han Solo is on and there are all kinds of people, known and unknown, in contention for this potentially career-defining/ending role. But how does one choose who is going to fill that familiar vest?
Like a horde of assembled bounty hunters Disney and Lucasfilm are scouring the galaxy in what some are calling the widest casting search ever for the actor who will play a young Han in the planned Star Wars spinoff movie says The Hollywood Reporter.
According to sources, more than 2,500 actors have met on the project or put themselves on tape, with casting director Jeanne McCarthy running point on finding the man to fill the vest made famous by Harrison Ford in the first Star Wars trilogy and The Force Awakens, which opens Dec. 18.
In what must be the easiest audition to land for anyone falling into that sweet spot, the contenders are being whittled down before Star Wars spinoff directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who worked with McCarthy on the hit Jump Street films.
The top-secret Solo project, with a script by Lawrence and Jon Kasdan, is slyly working under the code name "Red Cup," a reference to the college party staple manufactured by, yep, the Solo Cup Corp. But with every agency sending clients between the ages of 18 and 32 in to read for the part, names are beginning to surface.
Actors who have read in person or auditioned via videotape range from the well-known (Dave Franco, 30, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 25, and Miles Teller, 28) to the sort-of-known (Jurassic World's Nick Robinson, 20) to relative unknowns (Kickin' It's Leo Howard, 18, and The Purge's Tony Oller, 24) and also vary significantly in age – the span ranges from Chandler Riggs, the 16-year-old star of The Walking Dead, to Hunter Parrish, 28, and Mr. Robot star Rami Malek, 34.
Others who have thrown their hats in the ring include Fury's Logan Lerman, 23, The Fault in Our Stars' Ansel Elgort, 21, and Transformers: Age of Extinction's Jack Reynor, 23, plus TV faces like Teen Wolf's Colton Haynes, 27, and Bates Motel's Max Thieriot, 27.