Han Solo actor Harrison Ford surprised everyone at the Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, Florida when he attended the convention for the first time this year.
Mark Hamill, who plays the iconic Luke Skywalker, joined the 40th Anniversary Celebration Panel along with "Star Wars" franchise creator George Lucas. The two have made regular appearances in the annual celebrations. However, it was not until Ford joined the panel, marking his first-ever appearance at the annual convention, that the crowd went wild.
Ford was asked by panel host Warwick Davis about how his unforgettable role as Han Solo came to be. So, he talked about the first time he met Lucas, who opened the door to his iconic career in film. Ford first played a minor role in "American Graffiti," one of Lucas' old projects, and then went back to being a carpenter, before he was cast in the "Star Wars" franchise.
"I was actually installing a door for Francis Ford Coppola as a favor to his art director, who had built the door and couldn't find anyone to install it," he recalled, as reported by Independent. Talking to the filmmaker, he added, "While I was finishing up the door, in you walked with Richard Dreyfuss."
And the rest was history. According to Screen Rant, the mood at the panel was fun and lighthearted, where the cast members shared many jokes. The even joked about the recent plane crash that Ford, also a pilot, was involved in.
Lucas also shared his experience in screening various actors for the role of Luke Skywalker, which took more than a year, and joked that he chose Hamill for the part only because the actor was shorter than him. Hamill followed this up with a reference to a famous line from "Star Wars: A New Hope," saying, "I tried to talk him out of that line. Did Leia really have to say 'a little short for a stormtrooper?'"
