Billy Dee Williams Talks About Having to Defend Lando Calrissian for Years After THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Actor Billy Dee Williams was kind of the personification of cool as the character Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, but it turns out that he also had to learn how to keep his cool in public after playing the role in The Empire Strikes Back.

In a recent interview with the Dagobah Dispatch podcast (via CB), Williams explained the backlash he got from fans:

"When I would pick my daughter up from school, the kids would run up to me and say, 'You betrayed Han Solo!' ... I'd go on an airplane and the airplane stewards would say, 'You betrayed Han Solo!' I got that for a lot of years. So finally, I said, 'Look, think about the whole situation. You're up against a pretty formidable character in Darth Vader. And then there's, of course, Boba Fett. And these people were invading my space and I had to bargain with them. But the bargain at least prevented the complete demise of Han Solo and his friends. But I had to hold on to my whole situation."

He continued:

"So I found myself explaining all this stuff to a point where I finally said to people, 'Look, I'm tired of explaining all of this.' I said, 'Did anybody die? Nobody died!' I think that was a clear indication that Lando was trying to figure something out and he was trying to figure out primarily how to hold onto his situation without the complete demise of his friend."

I think it’s nice that he tried to reason with fans about it. He could have just gone the route of Han Solo actor Harrison Ford, who has been known to respond to fans who ask him, “Who shot first?” with the answer, “who cares?”