The ‘Star Wars’ character George Lucas based on Francis Ford Coppola
In 1977, George Lucas brought his Star Wars universe to sci-fi fans for the first time with A New Hope. The film was an instant worldwide classic, ushering in the golden age of sci-fi cinema. Although this would mark his rise to global stardom, he had become a notable voice in the so-called New Hollywood movement in the early 1970s after co-founding American Zoetrope with fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and releasing his formative classics, THX 1138 and American Graffiti.
American Graffiti, released in 1973, was a seminal drama that marked Lucas’ first collaboration with aspiring actor Harrison Ford. While Lucas hadn’t considered writing a movie of this nature, Coppola, who stood in as producer, asked him to test his auteur skills with a coming-of-age movie.
The movie’s success gave Lucas the confidence to persevere with his new production company, Lucasfilm, and begin work on his next screenplay, Star Wars. Inspired by earlier sci-fi movies like Flash Gordon and The Planet of the Apes, Lucas began developing his characters.
One of the first central characters created for A New Hope was Han Solo, an arrogant, volatile, fearless man who ultimately becomes a hero. Despite their collaboration on American Graffiti, Lucas hadn’t always planned to cast Ford as Solo. He allegedly wanted a fresh cast for the new project.
“I had already done American Graffiti with George Lucas,” Ford recalled in a 2020 conversation with Vanity Fair. “George Lucas made it known that he was not interested in working with anybody that he’d worked with in American Graffiti, that he was looking for new faces.”
Intriguingly, this courageous character wasn’t written with Ford in mind, at least not Harrison Ford. As Francis Ford Coppola revealed in a 2016 conversation with Sal Khan of Khan Academy, he had been Lucas’ inspiration for Solo.
“You aren’t just known for writing and directing these great films. There’s also a famous character in popular fiction that is based off of you,” Khan probed.
“That’s Han Solo,” Coppola replied. “Because George [Lucas] felt that I was… that I just took crazy reckless chances and would jump off a mountain without knowing what was down there to land on and that I would end up with no money. So he created… you can look it up; say, ‘Francis Coppola Han solo and you’ll find it.”
“So I’m sort of the dashing failure,” he added, laughing.
“Do you agree with that? Do you see yourself in Han Solo?” Khan asked.
“George is what I used to call… I always called him a stick in the mud ’cause George is very conservative, though his imagination is wild. But in his personal life, he’s pretty conservative, and I’m the opposite,” Coppola explained. “I’m much more… I’m not afraid of taking chances and taking risks because so far, what we know, you get this one life, and the worst thing that could possibly happen when you’re this old, old, old man or old woman is to be there getting ready to die and saying, ‘Oh, I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that.’
“You don’t wanna do that. In my case, I’m gonna say, ‘Oh, I got to make movies, and I got to see my kids make movies, and I got to make wine, and I got to do experimental workshops. And I’m gonna be so busy talking about all the things I got to do that when I die, I’m not gonna notice it.”
Watch Francis Ford Coppola’s full conversation with Sal Khan below.
