We know the video says “50 actors,” but we only have 39 names.
It would be damn hard to imagine anyone else but Harrison Ford as Han Solo. He’s just got that “perfect mix of distain and indifference for all things Star Wars,” as described by Mr. Sunday Movies, who you may know from his videos on subjects like everyone Iron Man’s killed and Easter eggs in the Suicide Squad blitz trailer. Now Mr. Sunday’s back with a round up of the fifty (or thirty-nine) actors who were nearly cast as Solo in the original trilogy and in the upcoming 2018 Han Solo solo movie from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street).
Now that Alden Ehrenreich — the scene-stealer from Hail, Caesar! — has been cast as the young Solo, we can look back on all the other actors besides Ford and Ehrenreich who were considered for the role.
An amazing array of actors auditioned for the original Star Wars. George Lucas was reportedly originally considering Billy Dee Williams and Glynn Turman, the latter of whom says the character was changed to white to avoid controversy over an interracial relationship with Leia. Then Lucas reportedly considered Kurt Russell, Nick Nolte, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Robert De Niro, James Woods, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Perry King, John Travolta, James Caan, Sylvester Stallone, and even Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.
Englund was too young for the role, but then he told the guy who was sleeping off a six pack of beer on his couch — Mark Hamill — that he should audition for this other character in the movie. Yes, Hamill got the Luke Skywalker role in Star Wars because he crashed on Freddy Krueger’s couch.
Among the many young actors rumored for this new Han Solo solo movie were Miles Teller (who hasn’t seen Star Wars), Ansel Elgort, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (we didn’t see that coming), Jack Reynor, Scott Eastwood, Dave Franco (who spoke about the audition process), Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, Blake Jenner, Jack O’Connell, Nick Robinson, Chandler Riggs, Rami Malek, Tom Felton, Emory Cohen, Colton Haynes, Lee Howard, Tony Oller, Max Thieriot, and Taron Egerton. But none of those actors seemed to be what Disney was looking for. Would that it were so simple.
(Via Mr. Sunday Movies)
