Apparently Robert Englund (A nightmare on Elm Street, Stranger things) took credit for hooking up with his friend Marco Hamill with his work as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars films for years now, much to the chagrin of Hamill’s agent. But that’s a great thing to be credited with, so why not?
Englund dived into the story of how the stars aligned to make this happen in a recent interview with The Guardiansaid:
“I really wanted to be in Apocalypse Now. I wanted to read for Chef – played by the great Frederic Forrest – but that part was taken. They heard I was a surfer, so I read for the surfer, but I think they thought I was too old. I was leaving, one of the producers told me they were casting across the hall for this George Lucas space movie. George Lucas was my hero, so I thought, “Hell, I’ll go.” At the time , they wanted Han Solo to be played older, like a cool uncle who makes you smoke marijuana at Christmas. They watched me for five minutes, took a couple of Polaroids; I didn’t read. That’s all I remember.
“But when I left, I tore up the sides of the audition [script excerpt] for this much younger character called Luke Skywalker. I went back to my apartment in the Hollywood Hills and my friend Mark Hamill’s cowboy boots were on my porch. He was working down the hill at CBS studios as a very successful television actor. Mark was watching the Bob Newhart or Mary Tyler Moore show. We would watch together in the afternoon and then call our agents at 5pm to see how our auditions had gone. I remember saying, “Guess what? George Lucas is making this space movie. “We both loved American Graffiti, so Mark called his agent and put pressure on her to audition. It’s kind of like Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I was living at the time with Jan Fischer, who went to The Lost Boys; our best friend became Luke Skywalker; and I became Freddy Krueger. At the time, we were just three young people living in the Hollywood Hills with big dreams “.
It is such a beautiful story! It has a feeling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as this was the same time frame, and you have this crazy randomness leading to one of the most important casting decisions in movie history. I would definitely watch a movie about this.
by Jessica Fisher
Source: Geek Tyrant
