Hollywood star Al Pacino says he 'gave Harrison Ford a career'
Hollywood legend Al Pacino opened up about turning down the role of Han Solo in Star Wars because he ‘didn’t understand the script’ and said that he ‘gave Harrison Ford a career’. The 82-year-old opened up about being a ‘new kid on the block’ at the time of inception for the now-cultural phenomenon and explained that although they ‘offered him so much money’ he just ‘didn’t understand’ the storyline.
“Well, I turned down Star Wars,” he told David Rubenstein as part of the 92nd Street Y, New York’s People Who Inspire Us series.
“When I first came up, I was the new kid on the block, you know what happens when you first become famous…They gave me the script of Star Wars…They offered me so much money,” he revealed. “But I didn’t understand it, I read it. So I said I couldn’t do it. I gave Harrison Ford a career.” Harrison Ford took on the role as Han Solo in the original film, which grossed $775.8 million at the worldwide box-office with just an $11 million budget.
Harrison went on to reprise the role in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of The Jedi (1983) and again in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
Godfather days
Al looked back on a role he did accept as Michael Corleone in The Godfather and stated that he re-watched the movie after not watching it for 25 years. He added that at the time of filming the cult classic, studio executives were underwhelmed with his performance and were initially planning to replace him.
In a meeting with the movie’s director Francis Coppola, Al remembers him saying: “‘You know, I had a lot of faith in you. And you’re failing me…The Sollozzo scene, where Michael shoots the cop. Coppola pushed that up, because he thought Paramount was about to fire me,” Al said.
“I do the scene, they liked it, and they kept me in because I shot someone,” Al Pacino added. — IANS
