Star Wars fans got a rare treat in Solo: A Star Wars Story as they actually got to see the face of Warwick Davis, an actor who is frequently part of Star Wars, but frequently covered by makeup and costumes. In fact, we've only ever seen his face in Star Wars once before. He played a character called Weazel in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and it turns out that he actually played the same part in Solo. Clearly, a lot has happened to Weazel over the years, so when I got to speak with Warwick Davis earlier this week, I asked him if he knew the backstory of what brought Weazel into the gang of Enfys Nest. According to Davis...
When we saw him in The Phantom Menace I think he was going off the rails a little but he was gambling and getting in the wrong crowd. I like to think that he maybe perhaps started to think 'well I need to do something good with my life.' and then started flying with a cause and that's when he joined Enfys Nest and got involved in that group. There's a bit in the middle there I haven't figured out yet, there's definitely a transition took place, but what the catalyst was for that I don't know.
While the fact that Warwick Davis was appearing in Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn't a major secret, it wasn't until the credits rolled on the movie that we realized that the space pirate character from Solo actually had the same name as the guy we saw sitting next to Watto during the pod race in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
How does one go from betting on pod races to fighting the Empire alongside Enfys Nest? Warwick Davis thinks that Weazel was a good guy with a good heart who ended up just becoming part of the wrong crowd. Eventually, he realized he needed to turn his life around, which led to where we find him in Solo.
Exactly what event caused this change of heart Davis doesn't know, though he told me he hopes that the creative minds beyond the new Star Wars Expanded Universe might tell that story one day. Maybe we'll meet Weazel in a novel or comic book and see the event that caused him to leave Hutt Clan behind and join the fledgling rebellion.
You can see Warwick Davis return as Weazel, and see him in five additional roles where he's invisible, in Solo: A Star Wars Story now available in Digital and coming to Blu-Ray September 25.
