Matthew Rhys says voicing Han Solo for the first-ever Welsh language dub of Star Wars left him too intimidated to reach out to Harrison Ford.
The Cardiff-born actor, 51, called the experience “weird” and “surreal” in an interview on The New York Times podcast The Interview, ahead of the sci-fi classic’s dubbed release timed to its 50th anniversary next year.
Rhys described the strange sensation of translating deeply familiar dialogue into a language he grew up speaking but had never used in this context.
“What was weird is obviously, they’d had to translate all these things that we’d grown up with, knowing Star Wars,” he said.
“I was saying in Welsh things like ‘pelydr cyrchu’… it’s kind of like ‘tractor beam.’ There were words I’ve never used before, and I was tripping on them. At the same time, it was this wildly familiar thing that I got to do. The whole thing was surreal. And then you go, I can’t voice Harrison Ford!”
Asked directly whether he’d spoken to Ford about taking on the role, Rhys was blunt: “No. I’m too scared.”
The Beast in Me actor, who now lives in New York with wife and fellow actor Keri Russell, also used the interview to reflect on the Welsh performers who shaped his sense of what was possible in Hollywood.
He named David Niven, whose mother was Welsh, as a longtime inspiration for his composure under pressure, recalling how Niven famously kept his cool even “when a naked person ran behind him at the Oscars,” and said, “I just wish I could be that person, and be gracious and effortless.”
He placed Port Talbot’s Richard Burton on similarly high footing, crediting him with proving that a Welsh performer could break into the upper tiers of fame.
“Because he was the first to be very, very un-Welsh, which was arresting and inspiring… To me it was like, ‘wow, we’re allowed to be that.'”
Rhys, an Emmy winner, also acknowledged that an Oscar win still holds real appeal for him, calling it a “next echelon” achievement.
The Welsh dub features a lineup of Welsh talent throughout, including Rhys Ifans as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Princess Leia, and Osian Morgan as Luke Skywalker, with Star Wars veteran Mark Lewis Jones, who previously appeared in The Last Jedi as Captain Moden Canady, taking on the role of Darth Vader.
