10 Things You Didn't Know About Alden Ehrenreich
Star Wars fans, meet your new Han Solo...
At last we have our young Han Solo. In May 2016, twenty-six year old Alden Ehrenreich was cast as Han in a spin-off that will follow Solo's early life before the events of Stars Wars: A New Hope.
It seems Disney is employing a similar strategy to how it cast Rey and Finn in The Force Awakens, casting someone relatively unknown, and with a rather brief career. Yet despite its brevity, Ehrenrich has had an incredibly unique and varied experience in the industry so far.
Taking up the mantle of one of the most iconic and beloved characters in Star Wars history will be incredibly challenging for Alden, but a brief look at his life and the calibre of film-makers he has worked with in the past should be enough to assuage initial concerns.
Before he's catapulted into super-stardom in 2018, let's take a look at ten things you didn't known about Alden Ehrenreich.
10. He Was Discovered By Steven Spielberg (At A Bat Mitzvah)
When it comes to making it in the film industry, serendipity can go a long way. When he was just fourteen years old, Ehrenreich and his friends made a short, goofy movie for a Bat Mitzvah in Los Angeles. What he didn't know was that Steven Spielberg was in attendance.
According to Ehrenreich himself, the movie was quite terrible (he described it to Rolling Stone as “a piece of sh*t”). It involved Alden breaking into a girl's house, dressing up in her clothes and then singing an improvised song.
Nevertheless, Spielberg was impressed by the actor's charisma. Not long after, DreamWorks had contacted Ehrenreich, procured him an agent and set him up with multiple auditions. These led to Alden getting his earliest work and sent him down the path to where he is now.