Who nearly joined Star Wars?

By: Jake Rajala

Star Wars is one of the best pieces of entertainment of all time. It’s diverse, well-written, and fill of enticing faces. With that said, there are some faces who haven’t been featured in Star Wars. So, I’m going to discuss some actors who “nearly” made the cut.

First off, there were many prolific actors trying to become Han Solo. Sylvester Stallone, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, and Christopher Walken tried out for the role.

There were many people (500) trying out for the Anakin role. Leonardo DiCaprio was one of those figures. He actually “passed” on the role.

BREAKING: Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend, Camila Morrone details the “worst date of my life” with the actor.

“He rented out a whole cinema, and made me watch every single ‘STAR WARS’ movie while he ran around with his lightsaber pretending to fight bad guys.” pic.twitter.com/uE5EnZMOp5

— Le Cinéphiles (@LeCinephiles) January 14, 2022

One of my favorite figures in Hollywood is none other than Rooney Mara. She was almost “Jyn Erso”. I loved her in “The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo”. She met with the director Gareth Edwards to talk about the role. However, she never auditioned for the role, so that clearly hurt her chances.

My favorite actor is none other than Michael Fassbender. He’s in “Steve Jobs”, “Inglorious Bastards”, and The Alien franchise. Well, he revealed that he was considered for a role in “The Force Awakens”. He didn’t specify which character he almost was.

Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs (2015) didn’t look exactly like Jobs, but he delivered one of the greatest performances of his career, capturing every ounce of his intensity and complexity. pic.twitter.com/LTnt2ETSwk https://t.co/OVNcmPIpho

— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) February 10, 2026

There was a very cool dude by the name of Tupac Shakur that nearly joined Star Wars as Mace Windu. Nonetheless, the role was given to Samuel L. Jackson, who is one of the most prominent African American actors of all time.

I do not plan on throwing my hat in the ring, but there will certainly be many more competition between top notch actors. There are people out there that may not fit into some roles, but stand out in a Star Wars set. Hayden Christensen isn’t an A-list actor, but he still has one of the biggest movie roles of all time, as Anakin Skywalker.