Actor Donald Glover is going to portray the role of Lando Calrissian in the soon-to-be-released Star Wars film, Solo: A Star Wars Story. In the original Star Wars trilogy, Billy Dee Williams’ portrayal of Lando made him a fan-favorite character. In fact, Glover recently confessed being a big fan of the character himself in a recent interview. He explained that being a fan even before he joined Solo: A Star Wars Story helped him to perform the role better.
“You tend to do a better job of things when you’re a fan. You have standards, a little bit,” Glover said during The Star Wars Show. “You just know what you would hate a little bit more. If that happened, you’d be like, ‘This is wack.'”
Glover said that he didn’t want to simply imitate Billy Dee Williams for his variation of Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. So, he decided to approach the role from the perspective of a Star Wars fan.
“You don’t want to do an imitation in this kind of thing,” Glover said. “You just want somebody to exude that feeling currently.”
Glover also revealed about his first reaction to learning that he’d be playing the young Lando. The Community actor said that he ordered a whole pizza and watched The Empire Strikes Back for inspiration.
“The day I found out I got it, I bought a whole pizza and went home and watched Empire Strikes Back,” Glover added. “That was definitely the beginning, but then I just watched a bunch of cool ’70s stuff that I thought would be his kind of style.”
In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, Glover revealed that he even met Williams to prepare for the role.
“It was really, really relaxed. He was great. I mean, I had a lot of questions,” the actor said. “And then he just told me, just be charming. [Laughs] And so, I was like, ‘Okay!’ I just kind of did that. He said, ‘Just be interested in things.’ Lando has, I wouldn’t say eccentric, but eclectic tastes. So I tried to work that into the role as much as possible.”
Earlier this week Disney finally released the full trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story as promised by the director himself. Fans can also catch a good glimpse of Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian in the trailer.
Fans will get to see Glover’s portrayal of Lando when Solo: A Star Wars Story debuts in theaters on May 25th.
Source: Star Wars via Comicbook
