Casting a Star Wars movie is a particularly unique challenge because, in addition to finding a great actor who’s well-suited to each role, the producers need to find someone who fits into the strange, curious, pulpy world of the galaxy far, far away. But despite this challenge, the producers have nailed such iconic castings as Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu.
A lot of Star Wars characters have ended up being played by the perfect actor for the part, but they were rarely the first performers considered for the role. Many A-list stars were up for roles in Star Wars before the eventual actors were chosen.
Perfectly Cast: Harrison Ford As Han Solo
For all intents and purposes, Alden Ehrenreich did a fine job of playing young Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story, but he could never fully sell the audience on his Han because Harrison Ford is Han Solo. It doesn’t matter how great of a performance any replacement actor gives; no one else has Ford’s distinctive ice-cool charisma.
Ford’s portrayal of the plucky smuggler has influenced countless performances in sci-fi blockbusters riding Star Wars’ coattails, like Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy. But the uniquely endearing Solo will never be topped.
Almost Cast: Kurt Russell
Before Harrison Ford was cast as Han, the shortlist for the role came down to Kurt Russell, Christopher Walken, and Nick Nolte. Al Pacino was offered the role but didn’t understand the script. Billy Dee Williams, who went on to play Lando Calrissian, was also considered to play Han.
The producers considered all kinds of actors for the part, from serious dramatic actors like Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro to comedy superstars like Bill Murray and Steve Martin.
Perfectly Cast: Adam Driver As Kylo Ren
The involvement of two directors with very different ideas in the sequel trilogy meant that Kylo Ren’s character arc (along with the so-called character arcs of all the other sequel characters) ended up being muddled and inconsistent.
But Adam Driver, one of the finest actors working today (proven by his performances in Marriage Story, BlacKkKlansman, Silence, Paterson, and countless other non-Star Wars movies), consistently brought his all to the role of Ben Solo.
Almost Cast: Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne was up for the role of Kylo Ren, but claims he bombed the audition because when he found out the part he was trying out for was a villain, he began affecting a weird bad-guy voice like the one he did in Jupiter Ascending.
Back when the villain of The Force Awakens was an older antagonist known as “Jedi Killer,” Michael Fassbender, Christoph Waltz, and Hugo Weaving were all considered for the part.
Perfectly Cast: Frank Oz As Yoda
In a moviegoing age when countless computer-generated characters are horribly dated on arrival, Frank Oz’s Yoda puppetry in the original Star Wars trilogy remains a timeless work of art.
He’s also a gifted voice actor, so when the puppetry behind Yoda was replaced with CGI in the prequels, Oz’s distinctive vocal performance was still required to make Yoda really feel like Yoda.
Almost Cast: Jim Henson
Since The Empire Strikes Back was being shot at England’s Elstree Studios, home of The Muppet Show, George Lucas originally wanted Jim Henson to be the puppeteer behind Yoda. However, Henson was busy with The Great Muppet Caper, so he didn’t have time to commit to playing a lead role in another movie.
Instead, Henson suggested his long-time partner, Frank Oz. When Henson’s initial puppets were deemed too unrealistic, Lucas considered casting a trained monkey to play Yoda instead. However, the monkey he chose refused to wear his mask, so that plan was abandoned.
Perfectly Cast: Carrie Fisher As Leia Organa
Carrie Fisher’s dry comic wit can be seen all over the Star Wars saga, because in addition to bringing a great sense of humor to her portrayal of Leia Organa, she also polished up a lot of George Lucas’ stiff, clunky dialogue on the set as an uncredited script doctor.
Whether she’s sarcastically shrugging off Imperial torture, calling Han a “nerf herder,” or strangling Jabba the Hutt to death with the chains he put her in, Fisher’s portrayal of Leia was always spot-on.
Almost Cast: Jodie Foster
At 19 years old, compared to her 25-year-old co-star Mark Hamill and her 35-year-old co-star Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher was relatively young when Star Wars was shot. But she was nowhere near as young as the original candidate for the role of Princess Leia, Jodie Foster, who was just 12 at the time. Foster turned down the role in order to play preteen prostitute Iris in Martin Scorsese’s neo-noir masterpiece Taxi Driver.
Kim Basinger, Glenn Close, Geena Davis, Farrah Fawcett, Anjelica Huston, Margot Kidder, Jessica Lange, Jane Seymour, Meryl Streep, Kathleen Turner, Sigourney Weaver, and Debra Winger all auditioned to play Leia before Fisher was cast.
Perfectly Cast: Alec Guinness & Ewan McGregor As Obi-Wan Kenobi
In the original trilogy, Alec Guinness made an icon out of aging Jedi warrior Obi-Wan Kenobi as he gave Luke his initial Force training, sacrificed his life to his old apprentice Darth Vader for the Rebellion, and continued to guide Luke on his journey as a ghost when he became more powerful than Vader could possibly imagine.
Then, in the prequel trilogy, Ewan McGregor did what Alden Ehrenreich couldn’t (but Donald Glover could) in Solo: A Star Wars Story. He took on the younger version of a role made iconic by another actor and managed to continue that legacy by simultaneously recapturing the magic of the original performance without doing a shallow impersonation and bringing plenty of his own flair to this new incarnation of the character.
Almost Cast: Toshiro Mifune & Hugh Jackman
George Lucas has made no secret of the fact that Star Wars was heavily influenced by the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, so it’s no surprise that he wrote the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi with Yojimbo and Seven Samurai star Toshiro Mifune in mind. He was also up for the role of Darth Vader but didn’t end up taking either of them. According to Mifune’s daughter, he didn’t want to do the movie because he felt it was disrespectful to Japanese samurai culture but also said that he probably would’ve accepted a Star Wars role after it became a global phenomenon.
When it came to casting young Obi-Wan for the prequel trilogy, Lucas considered Kenneth Branagh, Joseph Fiennes, Hugh Jackman, and Tim Roth for the part before casting McGregor.