The Stephen King Horror Classic That Made Star Wars Happen
When you think of Star Wars, you usually don’t think about horror movies (although the Sequel Trilogy was admittedly pretty horrific). As it turns out, though, a Stephen King classic horror film helped make Star Wars happen and shaped cinematic history in a shocking way. Director Brian De Palma was close friends with George Lucas, and the two held joint auditions for Carrie and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Some actors auditioned for one film and were offered roles in the other.
In August 1975, George Lucas began the extensive audition process to find actors for his upcoming space opera. De Palma was a friend and colleague of Lucas, and he needed to audition actors for his upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel. Because they were friends and because Carrie and Star Wars were going to need actors around the same age, De Palma and Lucas had joint auditions, with De Palma doing most of the talking and letting Lucas quietly determine who he wanted to cast in his galaxy far, far away.
This audition process was more extensive than most fans realize: collectively, De Palma and Lucas auditioned hundreds of actors for Carrie and Star Wars. Eventually, of course, Lucas narrowed the prospective cast list down to the actors fans love so much.
Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford were the director’s top picks for (respectively) Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo, though he originally forbade Ford from auditioning and had him simply feed lines to other prospective actors (Ford’s line deliveries both won Lucas over and helped shape Solo’s personality as a charming pirate who has been around the block a few times).
Who almost got the part of Han Solo before Ford got the final nod from Lucas? The Carrie and Star Wars directors saw some major actors audition for the smuggler with a heart of gold, including Nick Nolte and Kurt Russell. Before his breakout role in The Deer Hunter, Christopher Walken was Lucas’ backup choice, and he would have gotten cast as Han Solo if Ford had backed out.
William Katt, for example, auditioned for Luke alongside Kurt Russell’s Han Solo, and he ended up getting cast in Carrie rather than Star Wars.
Incidentally, the other two members of the core trio also had backups. Will Seltzer, for example, was the secondary choice for Luke Skywalker, and he never really had a breakout role after missing out on Star Wars. Terri Nunn was the backup choice for Princess Leia, and while she similarly didn’t land any major roles, she’d go on to be the lead singer for the hit band Berlin (Carrie Fisher, meanwhile, would go on to sing in The Star Wars Holiday Special, and the less said, the better).
Speaking of Princess Leia, another actor who auditioned for the part was Jodie Foster. Lucas wanted the princess to be a young character, but Foster was too young. Because she was under 18, she couldn’t legally work the long hours required for the film.
Because they were friends and because Carrie and Star Wars were going to need actors around the same age, De Palma and Lucas had joint auditions..
Considering that Brian De Palma and George Lucas conducted these auditions together, the most fascinating thing is how many actors auditioned for a role in one film and landed a role in the other. William Katt, for example, auditioned for Luke alongside Kurt Russell’s Han Solo, and he ended up getting cast in Carrie rather than Star Wars. The same thing happened to Amy Irving and Sissy Spacek, both of who auditioned for the role of Leia before getting cast in Carrie instead (and in a cosmic coincidence, Carrie Fisher auditioned for Carrie).
The Original Trilogy was almost drastically different, and if not for the ideas and input of Carrie’s Brian De Palma, Star Wars might have been a flop.
Aside from conducting auditions with George Lucas, Carrie’s director impacted Star Wars in another major way. Brian De Palma was the one who suggested adding the famous opening text crawl as an homage to old Flash Gordon serials the movie was an homage to, and after Lucas wrote a six-paragraph crawl, De Palma helped shorten it to its familiar form. His major input to the final film didn’t keep the director from later teasing George Lucas after a screening, where he said that The Force “doesn’t seem like a great name for this kind of spiritual guidance.”
There you have it: the Original Trilogy was almost drastically different, and if not for the ideas and input of Carrie’s Brian De Palma, Star Wars might have been a flop. Instead, it became a franchise that not only defined a generation but redefined what blockbuster films could be. That influence remained the case for many decades until Disney’s purchase of Star Wars and subsequent dreck like the Sequel Trilogy effectively dumped a bucket of blood on the empire George Lucas had built.
