Actress Jodie Foster revealed the reason that she passed up an iconic film role — Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” trilogy — during a recent talk show appearance.
Foster joined “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Wednesday to promote her new HBO series, “True Detective: Night Country” — and Fallon asked her whether it was true that she turned down the role.
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Jodie Foster was almost Princess Leia in @starwars! #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/Ac1JVeHJYE
— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) January 18, 2024
“I saw this on the internet, it resurfaced somehow, that you were offered the role of Princess Leia from ‘Star Wars,'” Fallon prompted.
“I was, yeah. And they were going for a younger, you know, Princess Leia, but I had a conflict,” Foster said. The actress, now 61, would have been just 15 when the first film was released in 1977.
“I was doing a Disney movie, and I just didn’t want to pull out of the Disney movie because I was already under contract so I didn’t do it. And you know, they did an amazing job,” Foster added. “I don’t know how good I would have been.”
The Oscar winner went on to say that she might have gone with a different hairstyle if she had taken on the role of Leia, joking, “I might have gone with a pineapple.”
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The role of Leia, the princess-turned-general, ultimately went to the late actress Carrie Fisher. Others who were considered for the role reportedly included Jane Seymour (“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”), Geena Davis (“A League of Their Own”), Sigourney Weaver (“Alien”), and Meryl Streep.
The Disney movie Foster had already committed to was 1977’s “Candleshoe.”