Alden Ehrenreich on the Effect Playing Young Han Solo Had on His Career
Alden Ehrenreich is back with a vengeance this year, starring in three feature films, including the near-billion-dollar hit Oppenheimer. The actor recently spoke candidly with Vanity Fair (hat tip to TheWrap) about his busy year and his struggle to land certain roles following his turn as young Han Solo in the 2018 Star Wars film.
With over five years in between now and the release of the film, Ehrenreich feels more comfortable discussing how that process affected his early years in Hollywood, as well as the changes from what Phil Lord and Chris Miller originally intended to do, and what the film ultimately became. He said:
“I loved the original spirit of how they wanted to make [Solo], and I did it because it was this great platform from which I could do my own thing. But what I realized at that point is: I hadn’t built my own thing enough to be able to do it… I knew that I didn’t know myself in that way yet, and that takes a certain amount of time and effort and failure in its own kind of enclosed way. That’s what I spent that time doing.”
After Solo, Ehrenreich played one of the main characters on the short-lived series Brave New World before the COVID-19 pandemic put his plans, like those of countless others, on pause. Even once the film and television industries started back up as the pandemic receded, the actor still had some trouble getting cast in new projects:
“When you go back and want to do something, you realize that there’s other people on the list who have surpassed you, and you have to fight harder for a particular role that you want. I’ve lived that over and over again.
“There’s a practical arithmetic as an actor now that, frankly, I just don’t have the stomach for in the long run. I don’t want to do projects on the cut. I don’t want to do things I don’t really love if I can avoid it-and with the cadence now, you kind of have to be doing a certain amount of projects.
“There are things that I really wanted that I didn’t get. The heartbreaker is when the director goes, ‘You’re who I want, but I can’t cast you because they need to have this guy who came off this thing.'”
Ehrenreich may have encountered some setbacks over the past several years, but he’s had nothing but success in 2023. Netflix acquired Fair Play at Sundance in a whopping $20M deal, and once it premiered on the platform in October, it played fairly well. He was also part of the star-studded ensemble of Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear, which earned mostly positive reviews though didn’t blow up the box office like they probably hoped. He also wrote, directed, and starred in the short film Shadow Brother Sunday.
Still, it’s Ehrenreich’s role in Oppenheimer that really stole the show for him this year:
“The people who are on that set are thinking and feeling and paying attention in an entirely different way, and you feel like you’re a part of something meaningful.”
Now that the audience and the industry have seen him in a substantial role outside the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, perhaps he’ll have the chance to pursue more of those roles he really wants. Next up, he has a key role in the upcoming Marvel Studios series Ironheart, which still has no release date on Disney Plus.
Will he eventually return as Han Solo to a galaxy far, far away for Donald Glover’s Lando film? Only time will tell. Check out the full interview with Alden Ehrenreich on Vanity Fair.
Eric has been a fan of Star Wars ever since the age of five (or so) when his parents sat him down in front of a TV with pizza and a Sprite and showed him the original trilogy. He keeps trying to convince more fans to read the amazing 1980s Star Wars newspaper comics by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson. When he's not reading, watching or playing Star Wars media, he's often enjoying other great fantasy and science fiction sagas or playing roleplaying games with his friends.
