Surprising Actors Considered for Star Wars

It’s been more than 40 years since George Lucas and direc­tor Bri­an De Pal­ma opened their com­mu­nal cast­ing ses­sions for Star Wars and Car­rie, pool­ing their resources in a com­bined search for actors who could car­ry either Lucas’s space opera or De Palma’s adap­ta­tion of the Stephen King nov­el

Obvi­ous­ly, the Lucas cast—led by Mark Hamill, Har­ri­son Ford, and Car­rie Fisher—worked out just fine. But those inau­gur­al ses­sions led to a line of per­form­ers in the next decades who either audi­tioned or were strong­ly con­sid­ered for roles across the mul­ti-part fran­chise. With the eighth fea­ture film, Rogue One, arriv­ing in the­aters this week, we’re tak­ing a look at 15 per­form­ers who once had a chance at co-star­ring with a Wook­iee

Christo­pher Walken

Droll, droopy-eyed char­ac­ter actor Christo­pher Walken first gar­nered noto­ri­ety for 1978’s The Deer Hunter, where he played a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly immo­bi­lized Viet­nam vet­er­an. Pri­or to that, he was one of sev­er­al actors who vis­it­ed with Lucas to read for the part of Han Solo, by some accounts doing so well that at one point Lucas nar­rowed his choice to between Walken and Ford: Ford, who had been in Lucas’s Amer­i­can Graf­fi­ti and was help­ing feed lines to audi­tion­ing actors, got the part.

It wouldn’t be Walken’s only flir­ta­tion with sci-fi: Decades lat­er, his name was bat­ted around for the part of James Kirk’s great-great grand­fa­ther in a Star Trek pre­quel film project that nev­er got off the ground.

 Al Paci­no

Already a huge star thanks to a string of 1970s hits includ­ing,Ser­pi­co, and, Al Paci­no appar­ent­ly had the lux­u­ry of being offered the role of Solo with­out hav­ing to audi­tion. “Star Wars was mine for the tak­ing but I didn’t under­stand the script,” Paci­no admit­ted in 2013.

Jodie Fos­ter

Jodie Fos­ter’s role as a teenaged pros­ti­tute in Mar­tin Scors­ese’s appar­ent­ly impressed Lucas enough that the 15-year-old actress was brought in to read for the role of Princess Leia. Dis­count­ing the awk­ward­ness of any pos­si­ble flir­ta­tion with a 30-some­thing Solo, she was passed up in favor of 19-year-old Car­rie Fish­er, who had only one movie cred­it (Sham­poo) to her name at the time. 

Orson Welles

Although Lucas need­ed a com­plete cast assem­bled for the start of prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy in 1976, he had the com­par­a­tive lux­u­ry of delib­er­at­ing on how best to per­son­i­fy res­pi­ra­tor enthu­si­ast Darth Vad­er. David Prowse was in the suit on set, but his lines could be dubbed over lat­er. For a time, mer­cu­r­ial direc­tor and for­mer radio star Orson Welles was con­sid­ered. Decid­ing Welles’s voice was too rec­og­niz­able, Lucas opt­ed for James Earl Jones instead.

Mel Blanc

As with Vad­er, Lucas was free to mix a phys­i­cal per­former with a voiceover artist for the role of C‑3PO. Unlike Vad­er, he opt­ed to use one man to accom­plish it. Antho­ny Daniels voiced the chirp­ing droid, although ani­ma­tion leg­end Mel Blanc was con­sid­ered for a time. It was Blanc who told Lucas that Daniels had a bet­ter take on the robot.

Robert Englund

Before land­ing the part of Fred­dy Krueger in the series, Robert Englund tried his luck at audi­tions for the role of Han Solo. He didn’t get it, but he did tell his room­mate about the space film that was about to start shoot­ing, and that he should try out for a part: Mark Hamill decid­ed he was right and paid Lucas a vis­it.

Jim Hen­son

After con­ceiv­ing of a wiz­ened old Jedi who would train Luke Sky­walk­er in the squalid swamps of Dagob­ah for 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas asked Mup­pet cre­ator Jim Hen­son to per­form the Yoda pup­pet for his cam­eras. “I thought he was the best pup­peteer,” Lucas once said. But Henson’s sched­ule didn’t allow for it, so the job went to a col­league at the Mup­pet Work­shop, Frank Oz, instead.

Gary Old­man

The brood­ing British actor has been in some of the biggest fran­chis­es of the past 20 years, includ­ing Christo­pher Nolan’s Bat­man tril­o­gy and the Har­ry Pot­ter films. Lucas want­ed him to voice Gen­er­al Griev­ous in 2005’s Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Old­man was appar­ent­ly agreeable—until he found out that Lucas was shoot­ing the movie as a non-union project. In a press release, Oldman’s man­age­ment com­pa­ny stat­ed that the “snag that made it impos­si­ble … is that this film is being made as a non-SAG (Screen Actors Guild) film. George Lucas and gang agreed to hire Gary Old­man if he in fact would become a union buster, and per­form work ille­gal­ly over­seas. As a res­i­dent of Amer­i­ca, and also a mem­ber of SAG, out of respect and sol­i­dar­i­ty with the oth­er mem­bers, he could not and would not con­sid­er vio­lat­ing his union’s rules.”

Sylvester Stal­lone

Dur­ing audi­tions for the orig­i­nal Star Wars, Lucas seem­ing­ly had few reser­va­tions about who he might con­sid­er for the roles. Fatigue, how­ev­er, would some­times get to him. At one point, Sylvester Stal­lone walked into the room and walked right back out after assess­ing that a tired Lucas wasn’t going to be a recep­tive audi­ence. “Guys in space don’t have this kind of face,” he said. “I get it.”

Leonar­do DiCaprio

Leonar­do DiCaprio had just come off star­ring in the then-high­est-gross­ing film in his­to­ry, Titan­ic, when George Lucas approached him to a play a young Anakin Sky­walk­er in 2002’s Episode II: Attack of the Clones. He declined. “I just didn’t feel ready to take that dive, at the time,” he said. The actor might have strug­gled a bit with the deci­sion, since he’s an avowed fan of the series who once auc­tioned off a toy col­lec­tion val­ued at over $100,000. He was even in line at 1 a.m. for the release of Phan­tom Men­acefig­ures in 1999.

NSYNC

The 1990s boy band NSYNC is an anom­aly on the list, in part because they were more than just con­sid­ered for small roles in Star Wars—they actu­al­ly filmed them. Lucas’s daugh­ters were so enam­ored with the group at the time their father was shoot­ing Attack of the Clones that he invit­ed them to the set to appear as back­ground char­ac­ters. Justin Tim­ber­lake and Lance Bass declined, but Joey Fatone, Chris Kirk­patrick, and JC Chasez showed up for fit­tings. All three played Jedi Knights dur­ing the bat­tle on Geono­sis. The parts were cut for rea­sons unknown, although fan back­lash may have played a part; Fantone’s fam­i­ly lat­er insist­ed he could still be seen dur­ing the fight sequence