A year ago to the day it was officially announced that actor Michael K. Williams would be joining the cast of the young Han Solo standalone film. Unfortunately, several months later, after Lucasfilm brought on Ron Howard to replace Chris Miller and Phil Lord as the director of the film, Williams was dropped from the production due to scheduling conflicts that prevented him from participating in the new Howard-led reshoots.
Williams was originally slated to play the character named Dryden Vos (the character name was not publicly revealed at that time) via the use of motion-capture technology, which wound up being played by actor Paul Bettany instead. It wasn’t until early last month that Lucasfilm officially announced the name Dryden Vos (described as a crime lord) as being attached to Bettany.
Via Entertainment Weekly, Williams spoke about his time working on the production of Solo: A Star Wars Story during his appearance on SiriusXM’s EW Morning Live. Check out a piece from the article below and then listen to his segment via the provided SoundCloud link beneath the text.
Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters May 25.
“There are some things in life, you just gotta laugh at it,” says Williams. “That was such an odd turn of events. That’s not the norm. As crazy a town as Hollywood is — I like to be the one that says I’ve seen a little bit of everything in this town — that was one for the textbooks. What are the odds of that happening? There comes a point, you just gotta throw your hands up and, you know what, it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Perhaps the hardest part for the actor is the fact that audiences won’t get a chance to see what he and his cast created together on the Millennium Falcon. “I will tell you this much though,” Williams adds. “What saddens me most is I was very proud of the work that I did. What I believe I have created with Emilia Clarke and Woody Harrelson and Alden [Ehrenreich, who plays Solo]… I thought it was some great work. We was on the spaceship, and we all had these amazing scenes together, and I thought it was a great opportunity, and I thought it was some great stuff. It’s unfortunate the world won’t get to see it.”
https://soundcloud.com/ewradio/michael-k-proud-of-work-cut-from-solo-a-star-wars-story
