In August, shortly after Ron Howard stepped in to take over Solo: A Star Wars Story from fired directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, a part originally played by Michael K. Williams had to be cut out when he couldn’t make room for Howard’s reshoots in his schedule. Paul Bettany was then brought in to play the same character, or at least a similar character filling the same role in the story, but we never really found out who Williams’ character was. Now that he’s been freed from the tightly contained Lucasfilm system, though, Williams seems pretty willing to give some details on this crazy Star Wars character we’ll (probably) never get to see now.
Appearing on SiriusXM’s Jim And Sam Show, Williams explained that his character, a motion capture-based creation called Dryden Vos, was a “half mountain lion, half human” guy who was “extremely sophisticated” and “very rich.” There was also some kind of love triangle-ish tension between Dryden Vos, Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra, and Alden Ehrenreich’s young Han Solo, with Williams saying it eventually turned into a “pissing contest” between him and Han. When Howard came on board, Williams was already off filming a different role and couldn’t make time to come back, especially since Howard apparently needed to reshoot everything Williams had already done.
You can see a clip of the chat below.
[via io9]