The Christopher Walken and Jodie Foster screentest that could have changed the course of cinema
In the annals of Hollywood history, countless casting “What if” stories capture fans’ imaginations. What if Tom Selleck had played Indiana Jones or Will Smith had accepted the role of Neo in The Matrix? What if Claire Danes had reunited with Leonardo DiCaprio on Titanic? Or, most queasily of all, what if OJ Simpson had been the Terminator? Most of these sliding doors moments are intriguing to think about, but it’s hard to argue that they would have genuinely changed the course of cinema history if they’d gone the other way. There is one screentest we can confidently say would have changed absolutely everything, though – and it involved a young Christopher Walken and a teen Jodie Foster.
In the mid-1970s, George Lucas began the casting process for a little science-fiction film you may have heard of called Star Wars. He preferred the idea of hiring relatively unknown actors for the three main roles of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia, so an extensive audition process was launched. In the end, it’s believed that around 500 actors threw their hats in the ring to play Han before Harrison Ford nabbed the role – and the list of future stars who auditioned or were talked about is mind-boggling.
In 2001, casting director Dianne Crittenden told Premiere magazine, “Anybody who was up-and-coming at that point was certainly brought in. I remember there was one day we had Nick Nolte, Richard Dreyfuss. John Travolta was one of the guys. And we talked about Robert De Niro. We actually didn’t really audition people; we just brought them in to meet George.” A couple of more established actors were also considered, including Al Pacino and James Caan – but one other auditionee is particularly fascinating to ponder.
In 2021, iconic Dune: Part Two star Christopher Walken told the Financial Times, “I did audition, but I don’t think I came remotely close to getting the job. About 500 other actors auditioned, so it wasn’t as if it was down to me and somebody else.”
Imagining Walken’s unique icy, bizarrely cadenced delivery as the galaxy’s most handsome rogue is undoubtedly strange. At the time, he was building a career in Hollywood but wasn’t a known entity yet. It would take the one-two punch of Annie Hall in 1977 and The Deer Hunter in 1978 to announce his particular talents to the world. In the end, though, he wasn’t too bothered about not getting the part, mostly because he was never convinced he was the right man for the job. He once chuckled to The Guardian, “I’m very glad Harrison Ford got it. I would have been terrible.“
Naturally, though, this story isn’t as prosaic as “Walken auditioned for Han Solo and didn’t get the part.” The truly astonishing thing about his screentest is that he did it opposite a young actress reading for Leia’s part – a starlet who was also on the precipice of superstardom in that period. In 2024, he claimed to Variety, “If I’m not mistaken, my partner in the audition was — I think this is true — it was Jodie Foster.”
Yes, as hard as it may be to picture, Walken conducted his Han screentest with Foster, who was only 13 or 14 years old at the time. The precocious youngster had already leant her wise-beyond-her-years performance style to Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver and was poised to follow that up with Disney’s Freaky Friday. In fact, according to Foster, she had already signed on the dotted line for that project, which was why she ultimately turned down Star Wars.
In 2024, Foster told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, “They were going for a younger Princess Leia, but I had a conflict. I was doing a Disney movie, and I just didn’t want to pull out of the Disney movie because I was already under contract.” Of course, the role was eventually played by 20-year-old Carrie Fisher, and Foster conceded that she did “an amazing job”. Like Walken, though, even Foster couldn’t imagine herself nailing a part that another actor so perfectly portrayed. She mused, “I don’t know how good I would have been,” before quipping, “I might have had different hair. I might have gone with a pineapple.”
So, there you have it. In a parallel universe somewhere, Walken played a mildly terrifying Han Solo alongside a 13-year-old Clarice Starling with pineapple hair. Oh, what could have been.
