Overview

• Pacino said the Star Wars role came with a lucrative offer but he declined after finding Lucas’s screenplay opaque.
• He sought a second opinion from mentor Charlie Loughton, who also couldn’t decipher the spacefaring dialogue.
• He quipped that by passing on Han Solo he was in “the mood to make Harrison Ford a career.”
• Ford’s casting as the smuggler in 1977 propelled him to global stardom and anchored the franchise.
• Pacino’s commitments to a Broadway run and his bond with New Hollywood’s “Movie Brats” influenced his reluctance to embrace the sci-fi project.