Kelsey Grammer Remembers His Audition to Play Han Solo in Star Wars

Harrison Ford ’s role as Han Solo inStar Warsmade his career , and make one of the franchise ’s most beloved characters . It ’s a success that another relative newbie , Alden Ehrenreich , trust to replicatewithSolo : A Star Wars Story . Yet , there is another actor who was in tilt for the Han Solo purpose . Someone whose about as far , visually , from Harrison Ford and/or Alden Ehrenreich as it ’s possible to get .

The stories of of actors who were almost sick in huge rule are numerous in Hollywood . There ’s even one about Ford ’s other giving role inIndiana Jones , asTom Selleck was primitively define to play the swashbuckling archaeologist . Yet few of them are as uncanny as this modish revelation . grant to Kelsey Grammer , beforeStar Warshad really gotten off the ground he was in channel to make for Han Solo . affair even went as far as Grammer having a fount - to - font confab with George Lucas .

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In an interview onConan , Kelsey recollect an incident when he was just 20 years old . He had been lately thrown out of Juilliard . Looking for employment , one of his former teachers put him in mite with an broker . finally , Grammer ground his fashion into a room with none other than George Lucas . The histrion recalled :

I walked up there , and I sit down and there ’s Lucas sitting there . He explain to me that they ’re doing this movie about a fairy tale in infinite . He said , ' There ’s two guys in it who go and rescue a princess . That ’s somewhat much it , ' and he tell , ' I think maybe you ’re a little old for the youthful guy and maybe a little too young for the previous guy cable , but you might make a pretty skilful , sort of like a John Wayne part . ' I thought , ' Oh I can do that , ' and he said , ' Well I ’ll suppose about it , ' and then that ’s the last I hear of it .

The above information is shocking for a routine of reasons , not the least of which is that Lucas ' pitch makes it sound like Han was to begin with much more minor of a character . As nearly everyone know , it ’s really the combination of Han and Luke who end up saving Princess Leia on board the Death Star inStar Wars . Obi - Wan is on the Death Star but only tangentially involve in the deliverance . Yet according to Grammer , or at least Grammer ’s recollection of an event nearly 40 years ago , it was more Obi - Wan and Luke who ended up write Leia . Han was much more the mysterious and aloof " John Wayne " type .

George Lucas with A New Hope imagery v3

Obviously though thing changed and quite dramatically . Han not only get a much bigger part but he could n’t be more unlike than a Kelsey Grammer case . Star Warswould’ve been Grammer ’s first major character ever . As it is , the first prison term Grammer appear on any screen was in 1979 as a waiter on the goop operaRyan ’s Hope . Yet Grammer ’s do it for playing much more self-respectful or tasteful characters . He ’s not much of a runner .

Some of the other player who famously miss out onHan Solo - like Kurt Russell , Burt Reynolds , James Caan and even Christopher Walken- make signified . Kelsey Grammer is agency out of left field . The estimate of the same actor who play Frasier Crane being the celebrated scruffy look nerf herder is almost too insane to compute .

Interestingly , decennary subsequently Grammer would get a chance to play a space captain . In a polar episode ofStar Trek : The Next GenerationGrammer played Captain Morgan Bateson . The role happened well into Grammers ' stint onCheersand happened because the actor was a genuine fan ofStar Trek . Yet even that role has most of the usual Grammer - philosophy , like his character being slightly pretentious and prone to fits of wrath .

It ’s impossible to know precisely what Grammer ’s Han would ’ve really been like in the ending . It ’s even possible that land the role of Han could ’ve send Grammer ’s calling on an wholly different route . Perhaps Grammer would ’ve become the action superstar that Harrison Ford did , if only he would ’ve been the valet inside the Millennium Falcon .