There's more to this femme fatale than may meet the eye.
Though I'm a fan of the "less is more" approach to marketing, I do think that there are enough questions about the potentially fraught Solo: A Star Wars Story to want to know a little more about what we're getting ourselves into here. One of the most enigmatic characters thus far has been Emilia Clarke's glamorous femme fatale Qi'ra, and that mystery is indeed central to her character. As Clarke told EW in a recent interview, “if you have got a really glamorous lady in a really sordid environment you kind of know that maybe the glamour is hiding a few rough roads.”
She went on to give a little more background on Qi'ra and Han's relationship: “They grew up as comrades, essentially. They grew up as pals, as partners in crime. There is obviously the romantic side of things. But they grew up together. So they were kids together.” She went on to say that,
Image via Lucasfilm, Disney
“You see the beginnings of him, this loveable rogue. You get it fine-tuned throughout these relationships, and Qi’ra is one of those relationships that has an impact on him as a character […] The goal is that the shadow of Qi’ra is there in Han as a character that we know. This girl is another texture that makes up who he is when we first meet him.”
Of course, Qi'ra also doesn't show up in the original trilogy, and is never mentioned again so ... we can assume something happens to her, or at least severs this connection that they have. But for now, “the point where you meet her, she is with Han. They are both doing what they’ve got to do to survive. And that is Qi’ra the whole [of] the movie. The whole way through, she is surviving.
Clarke also described the "dark" world that the characters will inhabit, which is full of smugglers and gangsters and a thriving black market. And yet, she also mentioned how much humor the movie has. “ All the Star Wars films have got, obviously, a beautiful flavor of humor in them, but this … this gets to be Han Solo funny, which is not the comic interlude — the comic interlude is it."
Image via Lucasfilm, Disney
The actress also touched on the theme of trust when it comes to Solo, regarding not only who you trust but how. In that way, it's also interesting to see how Han trusts in a lot of women:
“There is a female presence to this movie. Han Solo is only surrounded by strong women. He doesn’t know any woman who doesn’t stand up for herself, has got game and chops and intelligence and wit. Those are the only women in his life. And then he meets Leia, so it all kind of falls into place.”
All will be revealed in just a few months. Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Joonas Suotamo.
For more of our continuing coverage of Solo: A Star Wars Story, be sure to get caught up with these recent write-ups:
