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Donald Glover’s Mother Had Some Stern Advice After He Was Cast As Lando Calrissian

By Gregory Wakeman
Published on: 11:19 PST, Oct 28, 2016

After Donald Glover was cast as the young Lando Calrissian in the upcoming Han Solo movie, you’d have thought that his mother would have only had kind words to say to him. But during his appearance on Ellen, the actor admitted that she actually had some stern advice for him instead.

Donald Glover made this revelation to Ellen while recalling how he told his mother and father the tremendous news.“I told my dad, immediately,” Glover remarked. “My mom was in the back and she was like, ‘Don’t mess it up.’ She’s like, ‘Don’t mess this up!’ Because Billy Dee is like, that’s hers, you know?”

Quite clearly Donald Glover’s mother has a special place in her heart for Billy Dee Williams, who portrayed the character of Lando Calrissian in both The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. But while Donald Glover’s mother’s comments were hopefully meant somewhat in jest, he admitted that he’s fully aware of how important the character is to so many people.

Glover told Ellen, “I’m very honored. It’s a very big deal.” But while Donald Glover is aware of the pressure from Star Wars fans for him to deliver, he is also putting it on himself, too.

Glover explained to DeGeneres that both Star Wars and the character of Lando Calrissian have played huge roles in his life, remarking, “There’s this thing going around the internet of me in a Star Wars t-shirt when I was in high school… That was the first toy I had – Lando. My dad gave it to me.”

There’s going to be just as much pressure on Donald Glover’s co-star in the Han Solo film, Alden Ehrenreich, who will be taking on the titular role that was originally made famous by Harrison Ford. Ehrenreich has also recently been speaking about taking on the part of Han Solo, and, just like Donald Glover, he admitted that Star Wars played a huge part in his own youth, too. In fact, Alden Ehrenreich confessed that he used to pretend to be the character of Han Solo when he was a small boy.

Ehrenreich made this confession while chatting with Interview Magazine (via Slash Film), recalling how he vividly remembers pretending to be various other characters that he’s already had the good fortune of playing in his career, too.

“I remember pretending to be the characters in the movies when I was a little kid,” Ehrenreich admitted. “The last three movies I’ve done, I played a cowboy [in Hail Caesar], then I played a soldier [in Little Birds], and now I play Han Solo. So the little kid in me is having a real joyride.”

Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller took quite a while to pick their ideal Han Solo, though, and Alden Ehrenreich spoke about the lengthy audition process that ultimately resulted in him being able to portray the iconic sci-fi character.

“I had an audition process that went on for a long time, and I got to spend a lot time with the guys who are directing the film,” said Ehrenreich. “Getting to be around them and being around the world a little bit has been the main experience so far.”

But Ehrenreich did admit that there was one rather huge positive to the rigorous audition process, as he revealed, “I did my audition on the Millennium Falcon for one of my screen tests, which was pretty cool.”

We’ll finally get to see how Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover’s performances match up to the originals when the Han Solo spin-off is released on May 25, 2018.

[Featured Image by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images]

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