Getting a variable from a blueprint into a widget

The question is mostly in the title but to expand.

  1. Im trying to reference a variable inside BP_Inventory (Actor Blueprint) from within my WID_Inventory (Widget)
    I’ve created a variable within the widget (BPInventoryRef) but all the variables it calls return a value of zero. regardless of actual values.

  2. I have also tried using a cast to rather than a reference variable. but im unsure what i need to plug into the object wildcard on the cast node. Also, I’ve been told that this is a more resource hungry way of doing the same operation so i’m hesitant to use it.

I can’t seem to find the correct nodes to make this work. any help would be appreciated.

This seems like something really simple but I’ve been stewing on it for quite a while now and thought I’d ask you lovely lot for a hand.
This may be stating the blatantly obvious but im new to programming and UE4, so sorry for this potentially really dumb question. (it wouldnt be my first).

managed to fix this with a little help from a friend so thought i would post the solution here for anyone else having the same issue.

This is how i got it working: