21 Actors You Didn't Know Were Almost Cast In Star Wars
16. Bai Ling Was Almost Senator Bana Breemu
The Crow actress can probably count herself aggrieved that she was cut from the prequel trilogy when characters as poor as Jar-Jar Binks remained at the fore-front, though the reasoning behind the cut is up for debate. If you listen to George Lucas - who also cut his own daughter from Revenge Of The Sith - the edit was merely made to jettison superfluous story detail: "It wasn't like it was a major thing to begin with and I just cut that whole secondary story out of the movie quite a while ago" The role was a mere four lines - which can be seen on the DVD extras - and it's hardly as if it changed too much of the narrative trajectory, but Bai Ling claims that her speaking role as Senator Bana Breemu was cut because the actress had agreed to become the first person from China to star in Playboy magazine. Lucas strongly denied the claim.
15. Mel Blanc Was Almost C-3PO
Imagine for a minute a world where C-3PO sounds like Barney Rubble from The Flintstones, or Daffy Duck, or Foghorn Leghorn... It almost happened as Mel Blanc auditioned for the role when George Lucas was looking for an actor to over-dub Anthony Daniels, whose voice was initially deemed as inappropriate as David Prowse's was for Darth Vader. Lucas eventually passed on Blanc, as well as Richard Dreyfuss, who Blanc revealed was also trying to put a voice together for the character, but not before the legendary vocal star apparently suggested the director should stick with Daniels' own voice.
Imagine for a minute a world where C-3PO sounds like Barney Rubble from The Flintstones, or Daffy Duck, or Foghorn Leghorn... It almost happened as Mel Blanc auditioned for the role when George Lucas was looking for an actor to over-dub Anthony Daniels, whose voice was initially deemed as inappropriate as David Prowse's was for Darth Vader. Lucas eventually passed on Blanc, as well as Richard Dreyfuss, who Blanc revealed was also trying to put a voice together for the character, but not before the legendary vocal star apparently suggested the director should stick with Daniels' own voice.