What happened is, in November 2012, I was in Colorado and Kathy [Kennedy] called me. She said “Look, we’re going to do some new Star Wars movies, and would you come up and talk to me and George about it?” I said, “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve done my Star Wars movies.” I had done two by then. She said, “Just come up. We’d really appreciate it and let’s have a talk.” I said, “All right.” [...] And then they said, “You know, one of the ideas would be to do just a movie about Han,” and I suddenly perked up, because that was the only thing that interested me. I didn’t want to do a sequel. I wouldn’t have written the next one, normally. I just thought I had done it. But to do something with Han, who I found was the most interesting and fun character in the whole deal, and to be able to be free and make whatever kind of story I wanted about Han, well, that was irresistible to me. And I say, “Well, that does interest me.” And as the conversation went on, and there was some talk about what it might be, but I was not interested in what they were talking about. I was interested in how was the character I fell in love with at Mos Eisley formed, and what kind of story could you tell around that? Because really, I’m a Western freak. I’ve made two Westerns, and there’s nothing more Western than A New Hope and Mos Eisley. In walks a gunfighter. He looks like a gunfighter, he sits like a gunfighter, he shoots first like a gunfighter. And so I thought, what happened before that guy walked in the door?
