Young HAN SOLO auditions include Miles Teller, Dave Franco, Rami Malek and thousands more

Are you a male, somewhere between his teens and his late 20’s? Have you ever pretended to be Han Solo? Were you even fractionally good at it, in even the smallest possible way? Well, chances are you can probably then get an audition for the role of young Han Solo in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s upcoming Star Wars standalone movie. I mean, just about everybody else in the whole damn world who fits the criteria is auditioning for it it seems!

According to a report from THR, it appears that Disney and Lucasfilm are definitely keeping all their casting options open as they have reportedly auditioned more than 2500 – yes, TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED! – young actors for the highly coveted role. Casting director Jeanne McCarthy, who worked with Lord and Miller on 21 Jump Street, has the monumental task of going through tapes of all the hopefuls, narrowing down the field before they get to meet with the directors. And what a diverse field it is.

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy had previously stated that the character would be in his “high teens, low 20’s” but that has apparently not stopped the production from looking at some high profile actors who are outside that age range. These actors include Miles Teller (Whiplash, age: 28), Dave Franco (Now You See Me, age: 30), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Avengers: Age of Ultron, age: 25), Rami Malek (Mr. Robot, age: 34), and Colton Haynes (Arrow, age: 27).

They are also looking at some more well-known actors that do actually fit the younger profile, such as Chandler Riggs (The Walking Dead, age: 16), Nick Robinson (Jurassic World, age: 20), Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars, age: 21), and Logan Lerman (Fury, age: 23). And the casting doesn’t just stick to American actors as names of English actors such as Ed Wistwick (Gossip Girl) and Tom Felton (Harry Potter series) have also been showing up on lists. And apparently a few young comedians have also been asked to read for the role, as Disney/Lucasfilm are apparently looking for somebody “who looks at least a bit like a young Ford and can be funny and charming as well as handle the expected action scenes”.

The still untitled film – which is currently working under the code name “Red Cup” (as in the infamous plastic drinking cups made by the Solo Cup Corp – ha ha) – is only scheduled to go into production in January 2017, so there’s still plenty of time to get down to a proper shortlist and eventually cast our favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder.

Personally, out of all of the actors on the list (well, at least the ones we know of), I would put my money behind Nick Robinson as becoming the front-runner here. He’s the right age, has a bit of a resemblance, is talented and is a young up-and-comer with a lot of momentum behind him right now thanks the breakout critical success of The Kings of Summer and then the record-shattering commercial success of Jurassic World. I’m just not too sure about his snarky wisecracking potential though.

Who would be your pick? Just don’t say Chandler Riggs, because I don’t think I could live in a world where “Carl” from The Walking Dead is Han Solo.

Last Updated: December 3, 2015