Jodie Foster almost became a much younger Princess Leia in Star Wars

The actress says Lucasfilm offered her the role, but she turned it down because she was making Treasure Hunt for Disney.

Star Wars almost looked totally different… Jodie Foster confirms an old rumor: yes, Lucasfilm did offer her the role of Princess Leia in Star Warsin 1977. Yes, she almost played the heroine of Star Wars. And yes, she refused…

During his appearance in the Tonight Show by Jimmy Fallon this week, the actress True Detective 4 confirms that she had to decline because she was already committed, at the time, to another film: a Disney!

“Yes, they offered me the role. They wanted a younger Princess Leia, but I had a scheduling problem. I was doing a Disney movie and I just didn’t want to walk away from the Disney movie because I I was already under contract. So I didn’t do Star Wars… But hey, they did an incredible job. I don’t know how good I would have been. Yes: maybe I would have had different hair. Maybe I would have opted for a pineapple cut!”

Jodie Foster therefore chose to shoot The Treasure Run (Candleshoe), film by Norman Tokar, in which she played an orphan opposite David Niven. An unnoticed tale released during the 1977 holidays in the United States, a few months after the event Star Wars.

Already a star in Hollywood, Jodie Foster did Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese a year earlier. She had the honors of SNL and at just 15 years old, she would have played a teenage Leia, clearly different from the one we knew (witness her youthful face in the Disney film above). Carrie Fisher will end up getting the role where it belongs. She was 6 years older, around 20 years old at the time of filming.