Earlier this week, we got the first, long-awaited look at Solo: A Star Wars Story. But even then, that look was full of perplexing mysteries... like, who these characters actually are, aside from the scruffy lookin’ nerfherder and fuzzy co-pilot that we already know. Thankfully, now we actually have a few more details.
Solo is Entertainment Weekly’s latest cover story, meaning a deluge of information about just what we’ll be seeing in this early chapter of Han Solo’s life. But most importantly, it lets us put some more names to the mostly contextless faces we saw in the trailer. Let’s start with the ones we did know: Beckett (Woody Harrelson), Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), and Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover).
Beckett, as Harrelson had previously teased, will be Han’s “mentor” in Solo. He’s looking to hire the young smuggler-to-be for the heist that sits at the heart of the movie, but he will apparently first test Han’s skills with a robbery on the train (called the Conveyex) seen in the film’s Super Bowl spot this past Sunday. Qi’ra, who is suggested in the trailer to be someone who’s known Han since childhood, is described as a “shadowy” figure that he’ll “fall head over heels” for. Meanwhile, Lando is... well, he’s Lando goddamn Calrissian. Not a system, he’s a man. The man, if you will.
Lando will be joined by his droid companion L3-37, who is indeed Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s previously rumored motion capture character, and seemingly also the co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon... at least, while Lando still owns it, that is.
Finally, there’s two more names mentioned in EW’s story: Val, Thandie Newton’s character who’s barely glimpsed in the trailer, and Paul Bettany’s Dryden Vos. Val is simply described as “blaster-toting,” a description that could apply to basically 90 percent of the sentient beings in the Star Wars galaxy. We still don’t know much about her, other than one set picture where Ron Howard was attempting (rather poorly) to hide an Imperial insignia on the sleeve of her costume, which could either be a disguise or an indicator she’s a villain in the film.
Vos, meanwhile, wasn’t in the trailer at all. We only know Bettany’s involvement in the film thanks to one of Howard’s zillions of teaser pictures from the set during Solo’s extensive reshoots, and it’s rumored that the role was the one originally played by Michael K. Williams before scheduling issues prevented his return.
So there you have it—it’s only a smidgen more context than we previously had, but its nice to put some names to some new faces. Solo: A Star Wars Story makes the jump to theaters May 25.