-How was the audition process for this?
-Oh, it's humiliating. -Yeah, it is.
-Yeah, it was super humiliating.
Ron Howard, who's the love--
I think it can be empirically proved.
-Yeah, so Ron Howard is the -- -He's the loveliest.
-We love Ron Howard. -Sweetest man in the world.
-And he's a fantastic director.
-He will lie and say that he --
You know, he went "Paul's the only guy for the job."
And the truth is, is that I texted him kind of begging.
-You texted Ron Howard and begged him for the role.
And, in fact, this is a true story because --
-It's a true story.
-I have a screenshot of the text that you sent Ron Howard.
-Yeah. -And this is real.
You said to Ron, "Have you ever spent long winter evenings
wondering why you're not in the 'Star Wars' franchise?
I have." [ Laughter and applause ]
-But this is my favorite.
-And then, Ron replies, "LOL, I'll get back to you."
[ Laughter and applause ]
-It's a true story. If you ask, you don't get.
You know what I mean? -Yeah.
-You got to ask. -You have to ask.
-You have to beg. -You have to --
And then, apparently, he did get back to you.
-He got back to me. And two weeks later,
I was flying over to be in "Star Wars."
And I was walking down this spiral staircase
in, like, an intergalactic space yacht.
And I was, like, some super gangster.
And an R2 unit went by
with champagne flutes on its head,
and I was 6 years old again. It was amazing.
-Wow. Isn't that fun? -It was great.
-And this one, who is your character?
-His name's Dryden Vos.
He's a gangster. He's a sociopath.
He's really good at hurting people.
Some people are good at playing music.
He's really good at hurting people.
-Yeah, he's good at hurting people.
-And he's totally great with it.
-And are you purple in this film?
-You know what? I'm not purple.
[ Laughter ]
-You must be so psyched that you're not purple in this film.
"Please don't let me not be purple in a movie."
-It was a relief.
-Yeah. So what is your costume?
Can you -- -I have this super cool
asymmetrical cape, which made me overact wildly,
but, you know -- -[ Laughs ]
-Yes! [ Light laughter ]
-That's what I would do, yeah. -Yeah. Well, who wouldn't?
-Why not? Yeah. -It's a cape.
-Yeah. If I had a cape, I would use it.
-Sure. -Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, you just came back from the Cannes Film Festival,
so thank you for being here tonight.
-I came today, yeah. -Was it fun? How was Cannes?
-It was -- It was great.
And then -- [ Laughs ]
It was 4:00 in the morning, I was at the Cannes --
I was at Nice airport, and they have the most vicious
security guards in the whole -- in the whole --
any airport in the whole world.
I don't know why, but they are, and it reminded me,
the last time I was in at the airport
was with my son years ago -- about 10 years ago --
and he was 4 years old, and we had --
I had a British passport, he had an American passport.
And the guy was really suspicious, as he should be.
And he says to my son, Stellan, "What's your name?"
And my son looks at him and says,
"My name's Luke Skywalker."
[ Laughter ]
-You don't mess with these guys. -And I burst out laughing.
-Oh, no. -And the guy looked at me
really seriously, and he went, "Who is this Luke Skywalker?"
And I went, "W-What?"
And I went, "Stelly, tell him the truth,"
and he went, "Is this your father?"
And he went, "Yes, he's my father, Darth Vader."
[ Laughter ]
"Stelly, I'm gonna go to jail."
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
They don't mess around, dude. -They don't mess around.
And then, this guy was like -- "Who is this --"
He's losing his [bleep]
and going, "Who is this Darth Vader?"
And I'm like, "Are you [bleep] me?
Where have you been for the last 40 years?"
And then, they called the police,
and the police came over, and then, finally,
the policeman was like, "Oh, oui!
'I am your father, Luke,' yes." [ Laughter ]
"Darth Vader."
Finally... [ Sighs ]
-And he said, "Luke, welcome to our country."
-Yeah. -"Enjoy yourself," yeah.
I want to show everyone a clip of "Solo."
Here's Paul Bettany in "Solo: A Star Wars Story."
Take a look at this.
-I don't believe we've been introduced.
-Yeah, this is Han Solo and Chewbacca.
They're with me.
-I'm Dryden Vos.
I see you've already met my top lieutenant.
-Han and I grew up together on Corellia.
-Oh, a fellow scum rat.
Well, I admire anyone who can crawl their way
out of the sewer.
Especially a sewer as putrid as Corellia.
-Ah. -The stench. Am I right?
[ Light laughter ]
Well, it's good to have you. Welcome.
And you, too, Chewbacca. Welcome.
-[ Groans ]
-All right, let's eat a little, drink a lot...
and talk privately.
-Your kids... [ Cheers and applause ]
-...have the coolest dad in the universe.
Paul Bettany, everybody! -Thank you!