When Lucasfilm announced plans for a standaloneHan Soloprequel, there didn’t seem to be an actor in Hollywood who didn’t want a crack at playing the younger version of the character made famous by Harrison Ford. Producer Kathleen Kennedy and the film’s original directing team looked at a slew of actors between the ages of 17 and 34. At one point, the short list reportedly included Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Dave Franco, Jack Raynor, Scott Eastwood, Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, and Blake Jenner, before the role was ultimately given to Alden Aron-Reich. But the search for the original Han Solo was just as wide searching, and possibly a little more difficult to nail down, with quit a few Hollywood icons targeted for the role.
Since the release of the originalStar Warsfilm in 1977, a slew of names have surfaced as prospective would-be Millennium Falcon piloting smugglers who were nearly cast by George Lucas the first time around. Yes,Harrison Fordactually wasn’t the first choice to play everyone’s favorite scruffy Nerf Herder. He wasn’t even the 15th choice, by all accounts. So today, we look at some of the actors who almost pulled on those shiny black space boots to play one of the most iconic smugglers in all of sci-fi history. Here we take a look at 10 of the Actors who could have been Han Solo.
10Robert Englund
Harrison Ford is so dreamy, right? But Han Solo could have been a real nightmare. In a 2014 interview, Yahoo! Movies and a 2015 follow-up with the Hollywood Reporter, the man we all came to know as Freddy Krueger revealed he’d auditioned to play Han Solo.Robert Englundsays he went to the Warner Bros. lot to read for Francis Ford Coppola’sApocalypse Now. They told him he was too old to play the surfer in the movie but they sent him across the hall to read for a project helmed by one of Coppola’s buddies, George Lucas. He was too young for Solo, but he did bring home some sides for Luke Skywalker, which he handed to the guy on his couch: Mark Hamill. Yes, the future Freddy Krueger was the guy who tipped off Mark Hamill aboutStar Wars. Incidentally, Englund also said he’d heard that Tom Selleck turned down the Han Solo role. Selleck was later offered the role of Indiana Jones, but had to turn it down after CBS picked up the pilot for the showMagnum P.I., a career defining character that earned Selleck an Emmy and made his mustache famous.
9Nick Nolte
Nick Nolte is another guy who tried but failed to join the cast ofApocalypse Nowand like Robert Englund, was reportedly considered for Solo. Rumor has it he turned down Indiana Jones, too! In a 2011 interview with MTV, Nolte admitted he would have made a quite-goofyStar Warsperson. Nevertheless, the idea of Nolte as Solo did provide a great comedic premise for avowed Star Wars geek Patton Oswalt, who turned the premise into one of his best jokes.
8Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone and Harrison Ford teamed upfor a few scenes in The Expendables 3, but back when Harrison Ford was still working as a carpenter, Sly went in to see about donning the now iconic black vest and blaster that ultimately wound up with Ford. In a 2014 appearance onThe Tonight Show, Stallone told Jimmy Fallon that he’d actually met with George Lucas and his producers, though he was pretty sure Lucas didn’t like him for the part from the start. “Let me just make it easy for you,” he told them, before the audition even began. “I would look like crap in spandex leotards and a ray gun. Guys in space don’t have this face, I get it.” Stallone did okay with theRockyfranchise, so all is good.
7Al Pacino
Al Pacino says he was offered everything after his star making turns inThe Godfather,Serpico,Dog Day Afternoon, andThe Godfather Part II. Included in that list of everything, as he discussed with MTV at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival, wasStar Wars. The only problem was that the future Scarface didn’t understand the script they gave him or why he should play Han Solo. “I was inThe Godfather,” he said. “They didn’t care if I was right or wrong for the role, if I could act or not act.”
6James Caan
Pacino wasn’t the only actor fromThe Godfatherwho was considered for Han Solo. Howard Stern once asked James Caan why he turned down the role when it was offered to him and he said bluntly, “They didn’t want an actor. That’s why they got Harrison Ford.” Damn, Sonny Corleone! James Caan can be pretty hilarious during interviews, particularly when he’s sitting with someone like Stern. He described Ford as “absolutely mediocre” and said he’d since become “arrogant” as well. Caan likes to poke fun, so it’s hard to say whether the beef is real. So… Badabing!
5Chevy Chase
Speaking of “funny,” Irwin Fletcher may have convincingly passed himself off as a surgeon and as a friend of the Underhills, but could Chevy Chase have made a convincing Han Solo? He’s one of many names often tossed around as guys reportedly considered for the role back in the day. He did end up costarring with the late great Carrie Fisher, in a movie about the little people actors cast as extras inThe Wizard of Oz, calledUnder the Rainbow, which was released betweenThe Empire Strikes BackandReturn of the Jedi. Chase also lent his voice to the classicFamily Guysendup ofStar Wars,Blue Harvest.
4Bill Murray
Chevy Chase isn’t the onlySaturday Night Liveveteran whose name is mentioned in nearly every almost-Han Solo conversation. The rumor that Murray turned down the part followed him for years. During a San Diego Comic-Con panel in 2015, Murray was asked whether the rumors were true. He was also asked if he’d consider playing Solo in the forthcoming spin-off. “I don’t know if I was up for it,” he answered. “I can’t tell you for sure. But I am working out in hopes of getting this new thing,” he joked. “I’m doing a lot of swimming and pilates.” Murray’s greatest contribution to theStar Warsuniverse, of course, came in January 1978, when his Nick the Lounge Singer graciously added lyrics toJohn Williams classic theme.
3Christopher Walken
Speaking ofSNL, remember Kevin Spacey as Christopher Walken auditioning for Han Solo? It’s a classic sketch and it’s apparently grounded in some piece of reality and we aren’t just talking about Walken’s own legendary appearances onSaturday Night Live. Supposedly, the Han Solo role in the originalStar Warswas his for the taking, with some saying he was high on the list for George Lucas. Of course, Walken did end up with a part in another 1977 cinema classic: Woody Allen’sAnnie Hall.
2Kurt Russell
We haven’t seen a real Christopher Walken screen test floating around, but there is real footage of Kurt Russell auditioning for the role. In the decade beforeEscape from New York,The Thing, andBig Trouble in Little China, Russell read for both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, at one point reading alongside Luke hopeful William Katt, who would go on to star as television’sThe Greatest American Heroin the 1980s. While doing press forGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Russell admitted that during hisStar Warsaudition, he didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. “Something about a Death Star and a Millennium Falcon.” Watching Russell as John Carpenter’s Snake Plissken a few years later, it wasn’t hard to imagine him as Han.
1Glynn Turman
Glynn Turman, who went on to land roles inGremlinsand HBO’sThe Wire, recently spoke to Empire about going in to read forStar Wars. “In those days it said ‘black actor,’ ‘white actor,’ ‘Hispanic actor’ for every role, but it didn’t say either for the Han Solo part,” he explained. “It didn’t specify ‘black actor.’ I was rather pleased because I was just being called in as a talent.” According to the book Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, Lucas said the idea ofHan Solo and Princess Leia as an interracial couplewas just too risky at the time. Billie Dee Williams, who joined the franchise withEmpire Strikes Back, certainly brought his own swagger to the Han Solo esque character of Lando Calrissian, a role taken over by Donald Glover in theHan Solostandalone film, about the smuggler duo’s early adventures. There have certainly been more names tossed around as possible Han Solo’s back in the day and in more recent years with the spinoff prequel.
