joining a franchise, Glover was a childhood fan
— his irst action igure was a Lando — and he
has been read the riot act by his mother: “Don’t
mess it up!” Lord and Miller seem conident.
“These are big shoes to ill, and an even bigger
cape, and this one its him perfectly, which will
save us money on alterations,” the pair said in a
typically dry press release. Completing the central
triangle (or square, if you include Chewie) is
Emilia Clarke as a yet-to-be-named character.
With Game Of Thrones, Terminator Genisys and
now Star Wars, Clarke is cycling through sci-i/
fantasy franchises faster than Warwick Davis.
THE PLOT
“This moves closer to a heist or Western-type
feel,” Kennedy told Variety recently, playing
squarely into the character’s roguish smuggler’s
wheelhouse. Co-writer Lawrence Kasdan, working
with son Jon, is a huge student of Westerns,
with a particular penchant for The Magniicent
Seven’s Steve McQueen: the character will likely
be imbued with McQueen’s trademark swagger
and poise. Expect meeting Chewie, winning the
Millennium Falcon from Lando in a session of
dice game sabacc, and an intro for Boba Fett
(another potential standalone) to igure.
THE LOOK
Kathleen Kennedy recently revealed a key
visual source for the ilm. “We’ve talked about
[Frederic] Remington and those primary colours
that are used in his paintings deining the look
and feel for the ilm.” Arrival cinematographer
Bradford Young will be behind the camera: “It’s
gonna feel like a Star Wars ilm, but we’re deinitely
gonna break some rules, and we’re encouraged to
do that.” Solo wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘UNTITLED HAN SOLO STAR WARS ANTHOLOGY FILM’
IS IN CINEMAS FROM 24 MAY 2018.
A RED FLAG emblazoned with a giant
swastika hangs from the ceiling at Central
Saint Martins art school in London. Beneath
it, two SS men slouch against a wall; riles in
one hand, iPhones in the other. Dressed in a
navy overcoat and trilby, Sam Riley leans out
of a window and lights a cigarette. Empire is
on the set of SS-GB, Robert Wade and Neal
Purvis’ take on Len Deighton’s 1978 thriller.
It’s set in an alternative 1941 where Germany
has won World War II, the Nazis control
London and Scotland Yard is run by the SS.
Still, “no smoking” signs must be obeyed.
The ive-part BBC series pitches Riley into
this murky world as homicide cop Douglas
Archer, who faces a bleak moral dilemma:Sam Riley tackles violent
crime — and the SS — in
Nazi-held LondonWORDS SCARLETT RUSSELLLONDON
FALLING
collude with the enemy or join an unstable
resistance. “He’s ambiguous,” says Riley.
“He’s not a Nazi, but he thinks there has to
be law and order... His neighbours see him
driven to work by the Gestapo and don’t
know if they can trust him.”
The adaptation sees Bond writing pair
Wade and Purvis (they wrote all the Daniel
Craig 007 movies) working on the small
screen for the irst time. “We had more
freedom than with the Bond ilms, which are
so heavily deconstructed,” explains Purvis.
“It’s great fun having a large canvas to tell a
story with twists, turns and subtle plot
[shifts].” And if SS-GB seems to be following
in the jackbooted steps of Amazon’s The
Man In The High Castle, the writers disagree.
“We see that as science-iction,” stresses
Wade, “whereas we’re exploring the
consequences of what living through the
occupation could really have been like.”
The series will be long on historical
verisimilitude and short on heel-clicking
clichés. “We have Germans playing crucial
roles, instead of English actors putting on
dodgy accents,” says Riley. For the actor, a
“ilm noir with Nazis” was too good to turn
down. “As my dad put it, people might
actually watch something I’m in now,” he
laughs. “Plus, I’ve always wanted to play a
detective and my ego saw I was in every scene.
I’m hoping it will up my odds for playing
Bond, too.” Well, now he has Purvis and
Wade to put in a good word.ON-SET
EXCLUSIVESS-GB
AIRS LATER IN 2017,
BBC FIRST