SCREENRANT – The name of Emilia Clarke’s mystery character in the young Han Solo spinoff movie seems to have been revealed. Like all modern day Lucasfilm projects, the second Star Wars anthology film has been closely shrouded in secrecy as new director Ron Howard makes his way through production. Among the questions fans have are the identities of the fresh faces viewers will meet in this adventure through a galaxy far, far away. As was the case with all its predecessors, Han Solo is introducing some new characters to appear alongside Han, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca. Only one name has been revealed so far – Woody Harrelson’s Beckett, Han’s mentor.
This means we still have much to learn about most of the ensemble, including Clarke. The Game of Thrones star is locked in to play the female lead, promising her character is “awesome” and celebrating Instagram milestones with Chewbacca on-set. She seems to have a prominent role, making her the subject of much interest as fans wait for the film to come out. Finally, one detail about Clarke’s character has been revealed – her name.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, actor Michael K. Williams (who just left Han Solo due to scheduling conflicts), spilled the beans when he said his alien character had “a link between Han Solo and Emilia’s character, Kira.” The website Making Star Wars followed this up, assuring this is “not a misquote,” but spelled slightly differently. Per their sources, Clarke’s character is called Kura. It’s unknown at this point in time which will become official canon come next May.
The other interesting tidbit included here is that Williams was portraying someone with a connection to Han and Kira, making it sound like he had an important role in the story. Of course, with Williams now off the project, some will wonder if the script was retooled to account for his leaving, or if the role has been recast. So much of Han Solo is being kept under wraps, so it’s difficult to say at this juncture how all the pieces fall into place. Hopefully, more information about the movie comes out soon, painting a clearer picture of what to expect.
Some fans may recall that Kira was the name originally used for Rey during pre-production on The Force Awakens before it was obviously changed, so Lucasfilm apparently liked the sound of it and wanted to use the name for another character. Viewers should not take that nugget of trivia and run with wild “Kira is Rey’s mom” theories, as this connection is most likely a coincidence. The point of the standalones is to show how expansive the galaxy can be, and “everyone’s related to each other” is already a widely-mocked trope in the Star Wars franchise. Kira (or Kura) should be someone free of any ties to the saga, giving Howard and company the freedom to create something new and fascinating.
