By far the biggest role in Donald Glover's career will be when he plays Lando Calrissian in the upcoming Han Solo movie. However, things hit a snag when directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired earlier this year and replaced by veteran filmmaker Ron Howard. When The Hollywood Reporter caught up with the actor he was reluctant to elaborate on what happened but it sounds pretty uncomfortable.
"Ron is such a legend, and he knows exactly what the vision for what he is doing is … [but Phil and Chris] hired us, so you sort of feel like, 'I know I'm not your first choice …' And you worry about that," he says, admitting that the feeling on set has changed dramatically since the shake up.
"To be honest, I don't know exactly what happened," he continued. "I feel like I was the baby in the divorce, or the youngest child. The oldest child is like, 'We know what's happening, but we are keeping you out of it.' And I'm just like, [Glover's voice rises several octaves] 'Was that scene good? How did you feel?'" So, yeah, that sounds very strange and it's easy to see why Glover feels awkward.
Going back to a time when things weren't quite so bad, Glover was able to meet with original Lando Billy Dee Williams for a passing of the torch. However, their meeting didn't go exactly as he planned.
Glover found himself frazzled and running behind, as he often is, and was more than a little nervous. Once the formalities were out of the way, he threw himself feverishly into a dissection of Calrissian and his possible virtues: "I was like, 'I've always felt like this character could do this, and he represents this, and I kind of feel like he comes from here, and it's very obvious he has a lot of taste, so maybe he grew up seeing that from afar? Because I'm like that. Maybe he saw it from other planets and was like, 'I want to be that.' " Glover is full-on laughing now as he re-enacts the exchange. "He just let me ramble on and on, and then finally I was like, 'So, what do you think?' And he goes, 'Yeah, I don't know about all that. Just be charming.'"
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