Oscar Isaac Talks About Stormtroopers and Han Solo on the 'Star Wars' Set

Oscar Isaac in ‘The Two Faces of January’

Oscar Isaac is living the geek dream: Not only does he appear in the new Star Wars movie, but he gets to hang out with Han Solo and Princess Leia. The actor, now appearing in the Patricia Highsmith thriller The Two Faces of January, tells Entertainment Weekly that working with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher on Star Wars: Episode VII is everything he’d hoped it would be.

“They’re such funny people,” gushed Isaac. “Carrie is hilarious and doing such cool work.” As for the leg injury that sidelined Ford, Isaac assured fans that Han Solo is “150 percent” back in the game. “It’s pretty amazing to see him bounce back.“

Like most details of Episode VII, which director J.J. Abrams is shooting now, the nature of Isaac’s character is being kept top secret. One rumor has it that Isaac plays a descendent or son of Han Solo, a role that may have been expanded due to Ford’s injury. Speaking to EW, Isaac didn’t comment on his role, but did reveal the massive scale of the scenes he’s been filming. “[Abrams is] shooting on film and actually building the sets, so you’ve got hundreds of Stormtroopers or whatever, and hundreds of extras and all the ships,” Isaac marveled. “You actually see it. It’s all real. Everyone can interact with the world.

Oscar Isaac in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

Isaac, who also played the title role in last year’s Inside Llewyn Davis, added that the whole crew is approaching the Star Wars saga with “enthusiasm” and “a lot of heart.” The one thing that they’re not enthusiastic about, it would seem, is photo leaks. To that end, the Star Wars producers reportedly attempted to order a “DroneShield” to monitor the set. The Vice channel Motherboard has reproduced an order form for the device, which would have warned the crew of media helicopters and spy drones in the vicinity. The studio attempted to obtain the DroneShield in June, but the company told MotherBoard that their application wasn’t approved due to the security risk of shipping overseas. Had their efforts been successful, all those leaked aerial photos of the Episode VII set might never have emerged. And Isaac, for one, would have preferred it that way. “People want to know all those special things and when those iconic moments are going to happen, but if all that gets revealed beforehand I feel like it robs people of that moment when they’re sitting there watching it for the first time,” he said.