Christopher Walken Recalls Failed Star Wars Audition With Jodie Foster As Leia
Christopher Walken can currently be seen as the Emperor of the Known Universe in "Dune: Part Two," but once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, the quirky actor had a chance to appear in another huge sci-fi epic. As Walken himself recently told Vanity Fair, he auditioned for the role of Han Solo in the first "Star Wars" film, aka "Star Wars: A New Hope." Of course, Walken didn't get the part — and it's hard to imagine anyone other than Harrison Ford playing the loveable rogue (no disrespect to Alden Ehrenreich, who did the best he could with the prequel "Solo: A Star Wars Story").
To hear Walken tell it, he auditioned for the part along with a wealth of other actors, so it's not clear how close he came to actually landing the role of Han Solo. In other words, lots of people were being considered for the film, and Walken was just one name of many on a list of auditioning actors. But interestingly enough, Walken also recalls who he auditioned with: Jodie Foster.
"I think it was for Han Solo," Walken said. "Yes, I auditioned for it. And if I'm not mistaken, my partner in the audition was — I think this is true — it was Jodie Foster ... I think we did a screen test. I'm not sure we did a scene. Maybe we just sat in front of, in those days, those old videotape cameras."
He added: "I did audition for 'Star Wars,' but so did about 500 other actors. It was lots of people doing that."
Christopher Walken and Jodie Foster
Walken's confirmation that he auditioned alongside Jodie Foster comes on the heels of a recent interview in which Foster talked about how she almost appeared in "Star Wars" as Princess Leia. As Foster told it, a conflict with Disney (who, ironically, now owns all things "Star Wars") got in the way:
"They were going for a younger Princess Leia, but I had a conflict. I was doing a Disney movie and I just didn't want to pull out of the Disney movie because I was already under contract. So I didn't do it. And they did an amazing job. I don't know how good I would have been. I might have had different hair. I might have gone with a pineapple."
Again: it's hard to picture anyone other than Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in the roles of Han and Leia. But it's undeniably fun to imagine how things could've turned out differently. Ford and Walken have very different acting styles, but Walken can be quite charming when he wants to be — think of him turning on the charm as Leonardo DiCaprio's con artist father in "Catch Me If You Can," and then imagine him employing that same con artist charm to the role of Han Solo.
Still, in the end, director George Lucas made the right choice, and Harrison Ford added another iconic character to his long, acclaimed career.