Lando actor suffered from these absurd threats
If the arrival of the Internet and social networks has multiplied the number of toxic fans, as George RR Martin so rightly noted, this does not mean that they did not exist in the past. Billy Dee Williams, the interpreter of Lando in the second trilogy Star Wars, imagined by George Lucas between 1977 and 1983, paid the price. As he recounts in a forthcoming autobiography, the actor suffered hatred and racism from spectators after betraying Han Solo on screen.
Between racism and backlash, Billy Dee Williams looks back on a complicated period
Billy Dee Williams, now 86 years old, suffered greatly from the hatred of Star Wars fans. George Lucas’ work did not spawn a faction of “extremists” overnight, as evidenced by the actor’s memoirs, What Have We Here? Portraits of a Life is on sale starting February 13. The interpreter of Lando Calrissian explains that having been threatened in the past, everything could have been threatened in the current era, including John Boyega (Finn) or Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), who even left Instagram because of the harassment. What do they have in common? Being from minorities… In 1980, during the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Billy Dee Williams received an outpouring of hatred from fans for betraying Han Solo (Harrison Ford), who was trapped in carbonite at the film’s end.
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Princess Leia to Han Solo.
The Empire Strikes Back – 1980 #StonegasMovieChallenge2019 #TCMParty pic.twitter.com/6mX9HuuEHw
Almost everywhere I went, fans harangued me for betraying Han Solo. On planes, people looked at me askance. “How could you?” scolds a flight attendant. At the grocery store, a man shopping with his teenage son looked at me with disgust. “I should put you in the freezer“, he said, while his son nodded. The harshest reaction took place in the playground of my daughter’s school. In the afternoon, while I was waiting in the yard to pick her up, some parents looked at me sullenly. Then, after the bell rang, I received the same treatment from friends of [ma fille] Hanako. “Mr. Williams, you sold Han Solo. Why did you do that ? Now Han Solo is dead.”
It was laughable until it wasn’t – until I felt thata racist story was brewing. That’s when I took a step back, raised my hands and asked people to wait a minute before criticizing me further. I think I did good job playing Lando as a questionable character. But Lando wasn’t a bad boy, I explained. Even though it seemed like he betrayed his best friend, the truth was that Lando was caught in the middle of a situation between Han Solo and Darth Vader. He had to hold on to his own situation and gain time without contributing to the total disappearance of his friend.
It was a complex, carefully choreographed scenewith Lando appearing to abandon Han, and Leia professing her love for the Rebel Alliance hero, who, despite the dire circumstances, calmly responds to his heartfelt confession with the famous line “I know“. What very few people knew, and what the rest of us learned much later, was that George [Lucas] created this incredible cliffhanger because Harrison [Ford] had only signed a contract for the original film and its sequel, and that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to play Han Solo again. George didn’t want to kill him in case he came back. So Han was frozen and I was the designated villain.
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#04 Han Solo and Lando Calrissian (8.7%) pic.twitter.com/fpdDwKR0o6
Revealed exclusively by our colleagues at People, this extract proves to what extent the fan community of Star Wars has been problematic since its origin. Between racism, misogyny, and, more generally, hatred towards novelty or difference, as experienced by the director of The Last Jedi, this hateful faction of spectators has nothing to be proud of in their behavior.