Did a cancelled TV show cost Kurt Russell the part of Han Solo?
In 1976, Kurt Russell experienced arguably the most significant sliding-doors moment of his career. At that point, he was in his mid-20s but had already been acting for 13 years after finding fame as a Disney child star in the ’60s. After making the sci-fi comedy The Strongest Man in the World in 1975, though, he tried to branch out from those family-friendly confines by auditioning for one of the most iconic roles in movie history.
However, when Russell – and just about every 20-something actor in Hollywood read for Han Solo in George Lucas’ Star Wars – nobody could have had any idea they were circling a project that would spawn one of the most popular franchises in history. At that time, it was simply a new sci-fi movie from the director of American Graffiti, and the audition sides included baffling mentions of things no one had any conception of, such as the ‘Death Star’ and a ‘Millennium Falcon’.
In later years, after Russell became an icon thanks to movies like Escape From New York and The Thing, it was heavily rumoured that he actually rejected the chance to play Han. However, he set that record straight in 2015 when he told The Daily Beast, “I didn’t turn down Star Wars“. Instead, Russell revealed that not only did he audition for Han and wanted the part, but he also read for Luke Skywalker as well.
“I was in there on Star Wars and remember asking George one day, ‘Do you think you’re going to use me or not?'” Russell recalled. “And he said, ‘I don’t know which part I prefer you in. I don’t know if I like you as Han and this guy as Skywalker, or this guy as Han and you as Skywalker. I don’t know.”
In a way, this was a compliment from Lucas, who must have felt Russell was so charming and heroic, yet also vulnerable, that he could have played both parts. In another way, though, it left the young star in no man’s land because the director wasn’t 100% convinced about him in either role. To make matters more complicated, Russell had an offer on the table to play the lead in a western TV pilot entitled The Quest, and he loved the role of Morgan ‘Two Persons’ Beaudine.
So, with Lucas hedging his bets on Russell’s suitability for Han and Luke and ABC waiting for an answer about The Quest, the star had to make a hard decision. In the end, while it might have been difficult to accept, only one call made sense to him. “I gotta go to work,” he told USA Today, “So I do the western.”
The Quest began airing as a 90-minute TV movie pilot on May 13th, 1976, and the series followed quickly on September 22nd. In total, 15 episodes were produced, but only 11 aired because ratings were consistently low throughout the run. To Russell’s dismay, it was cancelled a little over six months later. The disappointed star watched on from afar as Star Wars took Hollywood by storm, surpassing Steven Spielberg’s Jaws as the highest-grossing movie of all time.
Missing out on a lead role in Lucas’ unparalleled crowd-pleaser would have been enough to make most actors sick with regret and envy, but not Russell. The sanguine star instead chose not to dwell on the path he didn’t take, instead choosing to celebrate the one he did.
“I don’t have any regrets,” he claimed. “Things happen for a reason, and I’m happy how things turned out in my career.”
He acknowledged that things could have been very different if he’d played Harrison Ford’s most famous role, but concluded, “You can’t focus on it. You move on.”
