Pre-Frasier Kelsey Grammer Auditioned to Play Han Solo in ‘Star Wars’

In an alternate galaxy, far, far away, the world of Star Wars could have been very different. While it’s hard to imagine anyone but Harrison Ford filling the shoes of devil-may-care scoundrel Han Solo, several other actors were considered for the role. The most surprising may be the guy who voices Sideshow Bob.

“I had just been thrown out of Juilliard,” Kelsey Grammer told Conan O’Brien a few years back. One of his voice teachers believed he had a beautiful speaking voice so she put him in touch with an agent. When Grammer went to visit his new representative, he was immediately sent up the street to meet a guy who was “looking for young men for this movie about outer space.”

The guy’s name was George Lucas. “I walked up there and I sat down, and there’s Lucas sitting there,” the Frasier star said. “He explains to me that they’re doing this movie about a fairy tale in space. There’s two guys in it who go and rescue a princess. That’s pretty much it.”

Lucas thought Grammer looked too old for the younger guy, but he might make for a pretty good John Wayne character. Grammer assured Lucas he could pull that off, but he heard nothing more after the audition. “Cut to two years later,” Grammer said. “I’m sitting in San Diego. I was working at the Shakespeare Festival there, and I sat down to this movie.” The familiar John Williams score began and a huge space cruiser filled the screen. 

“It’s Star Wars, and I suddenly realized, ‘Oh my God. This is that movie. That’s that weird guy,’” Grammer said. “So I really missed one there.”

While Grammer might be the most unlikely actor to miss out on playing Han Solo, he wasn’t the only one. Here are a few more of the Solo wannabes, via Dork Side of the Force:

• Christopher Walken: “I did audition, but I don’t think I came remotely close to getting the job,” he told The Independent. “About 500 other actors auditioned, so it wasn’t as if it was down to me and somebody else.”
• Robert Englund: Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy auditioned for Solo but didn’t think he was a good fit, he said on the Inside of You podcast. He did pass on the script to his roommate, however, thinking young Mark Hamill might be right for another one of the roles. 
• Burt Reynolds and Al Pacino: Both actors claim to have been offered Han Solo, though that contradicts the common wisdom that Lucas was looking for unknowns. Reynolds says he didn’t feel right for the part, while Pacino believed he was only offered the job to cash in on his Godfather fame. 

Walken, Englund, Reynolds and Pacino all fit the Han Solo vest better than Grammer, but to a man, they would have been lousy as Frasier.