Initial reviews for Solo: A Star Wars Story have dropped, and Donald Glover’s portrayal of Landa Calrissian is the ultimate standout. Taking the mantle from Billy Dee Williams who portrayed Calrissian in the original trilogy, Glover stars in the spinoff movie alongside Alden Ehrenreich, who portrays a younger version of Han Solo. Fueling our appetite to see Glover headline his own Star Wars spinoff movie, screenwriter Jonathan Kasdan revealed that Lando is pansexual.
In a recent interview with the Huffington Post, Solo screenwriter Jonathan Kasdan and his father, Lawrence Kasdan, revealed that the character of Lando Calrissian has an open mind as his most prominent trait.
“I would say yes. There’s a fluidity to Donald and Billy Dee Williams’ portrayal of Lando’s sexuality,” Kasdan said when asked if Lando was sexually fluid. “I mean, I would have loved to have gotten a more explicitly LGBT character into this movie. I think it’s time, certainly, for that, and I love the fluidity sort of the spectrum of sexuality that Donald appeals to and that droids are a part of.”
Kasdan’s revelation opens the possibilities for how writers treat the character of Lando in the future. Having an LGBT character in a major franchise such as Star Wars would be a game-changer, and having them be a person of color would only serve to shatter more barriers. However, saying a character is queer or sexually fluid and not showing it could be considered doing the bare minimum when expanding representation of LGBT characters in film. If we get the Lando solo movie we’ve been screaming for, it would be best to show Lando in a same-sex relationship with the romantic interactions we’ve seen in fictional heterosexual relationships to give credence to Kasdan’s words.