Before he shot to fame playing Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Al Pacino was offered the role of Han Solo in Star Wars.
The legendary actor has previously spoken about his reasons for passing on taking a trip to the Galaxy Far, Far Away, and during a talk at The 92nd Street Y, New York (via Variety) earlier this week, he elaborated on his decision - throwing in a little joke about the man who did end up playing the iconic space-smuggler.
“Well, I turned down Star Wars. When I first came up, I was the new kid on the block, you know what happens when you first become famous. It’s like, ‘Give it to Al.’ They’d give me Queen Elizabeth to play,” Pacino said. “They gave me a script called ‘ Star Wars.… They offered me so much money. I don’t understand it. I read it. … So I said I couldn’t do it. I gave Harrison Ford a career.”
It's difficult to imagine anyone but Ford playing Solo now, but we can't help but wonder what Pacino's take on the character might have been like.
Han was killed-off in The Force Awakens, but Alden Ehrenreich played a younger take on the character in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Unfortunately, the movie didn't do well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel, so we may have seen the last of everyone's favourite scruffy-lookin' nerf-herder in the Star Wars franchise.