Jon Favreau likes his bread buttered on both sides. He manages to juggle being a sought after character actor, most famously playing Tony Stark’s bodyguard buddy Happy Hogan, and being a top-flight director. He introduced us to the MCU in 2008’s Iron Man and recently had a critical and financial smash hit with the live-action The Jungle Book, which he’s soon to follow up with an all-star remake of The Lion King.
And we haven’t even mentioned that he’s also going to be helming the first ever Star Wars live-action TV series for Lucasfilm and Disney. Yes, there’s a lot on the man’s plate, but it seems he has room to squeeze in one more project as well, taking a bit of a test drive in that galaxy far, far away ahead of his television project with a cameo role in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
The Iron Man actor previously pointed out that he’ll be playing a four-armed monkey-like alien in the upcoming prequel, a character who was first glanced in action in the film’s teaser trailer. And now, a brand new TV spot has surfaced which gives us an even better look at the creature, which is apparently named Rio Durant. It’s short and sweet, but we do get a great shot of Rio along with some dialogue from him, too.
From what we can tell, it appears as is if this little dude is quite the pilot, apparently playing a key role in the initial crew that Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett puts together. The rest of them are Han himself (Alden Ehrenreich), Chewie, (Joonas Suotamo), Han’s ex-girlfriend Qi’Ra (Emilia Clarke), Lando (Donald Glover), Val (Thandie Newton) and self-built droid L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). It’s quite the cast, and Favreau should be a great fit for the role, whatever the character ends up doing in the film.
Of course, real Star Wars fans will know that this isn’t Favreau’s first appearance in the franchise. He initially turned up in six episodes of The Clone Wars, voicing Mandalorian warrior Pre Vizsla (until he was killed by Darth Maul). But it’s always great to see the actor on screen and even though he won’t be appearing in the flesh in Solo: A Star Wars Story, we’re still excited to meet Rio and find out what he gets up to.