'Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse' Star Shameik Moore Originally Auditioned To Be Lando In Lord And Miller's 'Solo'

Shameik Moore, the up-and-coming actor who most recently voiced Miles Morales in Sony's animated hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, initially met producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller for a completely different project. The Dope star auditioned for the role of Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story before Lord & Miller were fired from that project. Learn about that encounter, and how Moore may perform a song for the Into the Spider-Verse sequel below.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the 23-year-old Moore explained how he met Phil Lord (who co-wrote the screenplay) and Chris Miller when he auditioned for the role of the dashing Millennium Falcon owner Lando Calrissian in the early days of Solo: A Star Wars Story:

"I don't really care about who I'm auditioning for. I don't know much about who the directors are beforehand. I go in there to execute my job, and if you want me, I'm here to execute. I don't think I knew that these were the same dudes that were interested in me for Spider-Man when I went in for Star Wars. I do remember meeting them, and going in there and doing it, but I also remember feeling like I wasn't going to have that part."

Sounds like the opposite of his experience with Spider-Verse, when, weirdly, Moore predicted years beforehand that he'd get the role as Miles Morales and seemed to will it into existence.

Meanwhile, Moore was asked whether he'd be performing on the soundtrack for the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel, considering that he's a singer in his own right. Here's his response:

"They were asking me to make a song for Spider-Man before any of the songs on the soundtrack were even being considered. The only reason I am not on the soundtrack is because I couldn't quite come up with a song myself to write from Miles' point of view. So next time, hopefully. The music that I've been making is for me. It's not really for Spider-Man. It's for who I am. My music is a bit edgier."

Moore, who broke out in 2015 with the indie film Dope and subsequently starred on Netflix's The Get Down, released an album called I Am Da Beat in 2012 and has since released several tracks on Soundcloud. Some of that music is indeed probably too edgy for an animated feature (example "Jiggle It"), but this video is a PG-13 example of what he's capable of:

Chalk it up to another classic Hollywood "what if" scenario: would a Shameik Moore Lando Calrissian have been preferable to the version we ultimately saw from Donald Glover? We'll never know, but it's a fun piece of trivia either way.