Creed star Tessa Thompson, Divergent film series actress Zoe Kravitz and Naomi Scott, who appears in the upcoming Power Rangers movie, are the frontrunners for the female lead in Lucasfilm’s Han Solo-centric Star Wars spinoff.
Sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter that the actresses have tested this week for the project, being directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie).
The filmmakers and Lucasfilm are moving concurrently on two fronts, searching for both the female lead and the actor who will portray Lando Calrissian, the suave gambler played in the original trilogy by Billy Dee Williams. (Atlanta star Donald Glover, Straight Outta Compton‘s O’Shea Jackson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, from Baz Luhrmann’s Netflix series The Get Down, were among the finalists in the summer.)
Meetings, readings and testing have been ongoing under a veil of secrecy for months.
It’s the same methodical approach that was taken to find the actor who will inhabit Han Solo. Lucasfilm and the filmmakers spent months looking before finally settling on Alden Ehrenreich.
The moviemakers can afford to take their time, since shooting isn’t expected to begin until next year for a May 25, 2018, release.
