It’s hard not to think of Harrison Ford playing Han Solo and consider that another actor could have played that role. Yet, a swarm of actors auditioned for the part, with some turning it down and others not landing it. Here are five top actors who almost played Han Solo. You can decide if Ford was the right choice.
1. Al Pacino
As this Reddit board recognizes, Al Pacino was offered the role of Han Solo after he had starred in The Godfather. Other actors, such as Alec Guinness, shared his doubtful viewpoint about the premise of Star Wars. In Pacino’s case, his doubt about the movie’s viability caused him to reject the role.
More specifically, Pacino found the script too confusing. As this video conveys, Pacino commented over the years about his confusion over the screenplay with a mix of humor and regret. Perhaps, Pacino agreed with a film executive at the time who called Star Wars “a children’s movie about space wizards with laser swords.”
We can also see in this video how the role of Han would have been altered by Pacino’s background of playing “gritty, paranoid, morally ambiguous” 1970s characters. With Pacino as Han, we probably would have seen a more intense character. By not taking the part, Pacino half-jokingly indicated how he helped “make” Harrison Ford’s career.
2. Burt Reynolds
As this article captures on its list of actors who turned down Star Wars, Burt Reynolds also said no to playing Han. Reynolds was more specific, though, about regretting not taking the role.
Like Pacino, Reynolds didn’t find the science fiction angle of Star Wars appealing and doubted the script. He preferred the action-comedy that he starred in, Smokey and the Bandit, which came out just two days after Star Wars in May 1977.
As he expressed in an interview at the time, he wasn’t interested in “that kind of role”, but later wished he had done it. His decision corresponded with other decisions he made, such as turning down The Godfather.
Reynolds established a track record of turning down movie roles that went on to great success. This Variety article catalogs how the actor “turned down some of the most famous movie roles of all time,” including James Bond, Michael Corleone, and Bruce Willis’s role in Die Hard.
That trend helps explain his refusal to play Han–he just didn’t see himself in that role. With that decision, Reynolds joined other “A-listers” who decided not to move ahead as Han or had that decision made for them.
3. Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is among the actors who could have played Han Solo, as this write-up captures. Walken was Lucas’ “second choice” after Harrison Ford. We may agree that with Walken in the role, he would have added more “dramatic pauses” into Han’s scenes with Leia.
In Walken’s case, he didn’t turn down the role. He auditioned, but Lucas selected Ford instead. Articles like this one comment on both the “diverse array of actors” who auditioned for the part and Walken’s openness about feeling he had a poor audition. Sometimes, actor instincts can help lead the casting decision in the right direction.
Yet, we may wonder if Walken would have given us a version of Han that was just as good or better than Ford’s portrayal. In this interview, Conan O’Brien gets us to ponder that very question, while Walken places the audition among many that he did at the time.
4. Sylvester Stallone
A more rugged Han character may have been offered to audiences had Sylvester Stallone accepted the role. Yet, similar to Walken, he felt that he wasn’t right for the part.
Stallone indicated that he “didn’t think he looked the part” and told Lucas so. As the actor expressed, “Guys in space don’t have this face. I get it.” Apparently, Lucas agreed with him, and they mutually sidelined this possibility.
Here we see a rendition of what it could have looked like at the Creature Cantina with Stallone as Han. In hindsight, it doesn’t seem to fit the role quite right, but the possibility is intriguing since Han was an action-rogue type of character.
5. Kurt Russell
For Kurt Russell, it was a combination of his other film commitments and Lucas’s indecision about the role that explains why he didn’t play Han. Lacking a firm decision from Lucas, Russell went with the Western TV series, The Quest.
Like Pacino, Russell chose not to take the role, but his decision was aided by Lucas’s indecision. As Russell later commented, he asked Lucas whether he was “going to use me or not,” but Lucas couldn’t decide if he preferred him as Han or Luke. Ultimately, Russell decided to walk away from the project.
In Russell’s audition tape, he has a hesitant, subdued quality that plays similarly to Ford’s rendition of Han. So, it’s hard to say that he wouldn’t have fit the role well. Yet, in this comparison of their auditions, Ford provides that edgy quality that must have endeared him to Lucas. At least, we may see that result knowing that Ford became Han Solo.