On May 4, the world celebrates Star Wars Day, which commemorates George Lucas’ multi-billion-dollar, decades-long franchise.
Currently, there are nine episodes in the Star Wars film series, plus three standalone movies (and two more on the way). Since Disney acquired Lucasfilm for over $4 billion in 2012, the company has created a number of Star Wars TV shows — including the Emmy Award-winning The Mandalorian — merchandise and even a dedicated land at Disney theme parks.
But Lucas’ hope was always to provide an imaginative escape.
“The reason I’m making Star Wars is that I want to give young people some sort of faraway exotic environment for their imaginations to run around in,” Lucas told The New York Times in 1976. “I have a strong feeling about interesting kids in space exploration. I want them to want it. I want them to get beyond the basic stupidities of the moment … It’s our only hope in a way.”
From where Lucas got his inspiration for the franchise to the real story behind Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith’s final epic lightsaber duel, here are 12 behind-the-scenes facts you didn’t know about Star Wars.
Ewan McGregor uses a sound file full of Sir Alec Guinness’ lines to channel Obi-Wan Kenobi
Sir Alec Guinness brought the legendary Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi to life in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, so Ewan McGregor knew he had a tall task in playing the Jedi’s younger self in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
Seventeen years later, McGregor reprised the role in Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series. To get back into character, McGregor went back to the source.
“I’m always trying to sound like him, but I have to feel like him and it’s the way he phrases things,” McGregor told Rotten Tomatoes in 2022. “I have all his lines from A New Hope in a sound file, just his lines.”
Samuel L. Jackson got his role as Mace Windu by talking about the franchise on a talk show
“Ask and you shall receive” sounds like sage advice from Yoda, but Samuel L. Jackson put this phrase into action to get cast as the strong-willed, purple-lightsaber-wielding Jedi Mace Windu.
In 1996, Jackson appeared on the British talk show TFI Friday, where he made it clear that he wanted to be part of the upcoming Star Wars prequel trilogy.
“When I saw [Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope], I was like, ‘Damn, I would love to be in one of these movies,’ ” Jackson told ScreenSlam. “20 years later, I had the opportunity to just say that, because I realized, well, George [Lucas] was about to make the next installment. Maybe if I say it often enough, he’ll hear it, and he did.”
Mark Hamill originally thought Harrison Ford’s Han Solo was the franchise star
Mark Hamill may have been the original franchise’s protagonist as the lovable Luke Skywalker, but originally, he didn’t know he was the star. When Hamill screen-tested with Harrison Ford, Hamill thought that he would just be a sidekick.
“When I tested, I figured Harrison’s the leading man. I’m like the annoying sidekick … because I’m badgering him and all this stuff,” Hamill told the Smartless podcast in 2025. “So I started to read this [script] and, in the very beginning, I realized, ‘Oh my god. This is seen through the eyes of this teenage farm boy.’ That was unusual in and of itself. You’d think it’d probably be through the eyes of Han Solo.”
Jude Law’s childhood love of Star Wars inspired him to pursue his Skeleton Crew role
In the continuing expansion of the Star Wars universe, Disney released a coming-of-age adventure series called Star Wars: Skeleton Crew in 2024, which stars Jude Law as a Force-using pirate captain named Jod.
As a kid, Law loved Star Wars so much that he wanted to be part of the franchise.
“I suppose looking back now, it was a big part of my love affair with film, the beauty of film as storytelling and therefore perhaps what inspired me to act and why I wanted to be in that world,” Law told PEOPLE in 2024.
Darth Vader’s famous “I am your father” line was only known by Hamill, Lucas and director Irvin Kershner until the film’s premiere
In the critically-acclaimed Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones) spoke one of the most iconic lines of all time when Luke accused him of killing his father.
“No, I am your father,” Vader replied.
The reveal was so secretive that only Hamill, Lucas and Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner knew about it beforehand.
“The cast & crew first learned of it when they saw the finished film. When we shot it, Vader’s line was ‘You don’t know the truth, Obi-Wan killed your father.’ Only Irvin Kershner, George Lucas & I knew what would be dubbed in later. Agony keeping that secret for over a year!” Hamill wrote on X in 2020.
Mark Hamill was bitten by a snake while filming The Empire Strikes Back
In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker trains in the ways of the Force with the sage advice-filled, miniature green Jedi master Yoda on his home planet of Dagobah. But the set for the otherworldly planet had snakes everywhere, and Hamill even got bitten by one of them.
“It was a little love nip,” Hamill joked afterwards in a behind-the-scenes video.
A real volcanic eruption was used for Revenge of the Sith
In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker — having fully turned to the dark side — engages in an epic, fiery lightsaber battle with friend-turned-foe Obi-Wan Kenobi on the volcanic planet of Mustafar.
It turns out some of those volcano eruptions were real, since the volcano Mount Etna erupted while the crew was filming backdrop photography in Italy for the movie, per Lucasfilm editor J.W. Rinzler’s book The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
Hayden Christensen pleaded to wear the Darth Vader suit
After playing Anakin Skywalker — who transitioned from a prophetic padawan Jedi into one of the most sinister villains of all time — Christensen wasn’t supposed to don the iconic Darth Vader suit in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
Lucas and producer Rick McCallum were auditioning “basketball players” and similarly tall actors to wear the Vader suit, but Christensen requested that he do it instead.
“I just very politely asked if it was possible. And George [Lucas] and Rick [McCallum] — and the kind of people that they are — allowed me that privilege,” Christensen told About Entertainment in 2005.
Yoda was almost played by a monkey with a mask
Yoda’s puppet appearance was almost even quirkier. In Rinzler’s book, he wrote that Lucas originally wanted Yoda to be played by a monkey in a mask.
The idea didn’t last long, and legendary Muppets creator and puppeteer Jim Henson was brought in to help build the Yoda that fans know today.
There were two versions ofThe Mandalorian’s Baby Yoda
As the first live-action Star Wars show, The Mandalorian was a smash hit and its breakout star was none other than the adorable Baby Yoda. Bringing him to the screen would ultimately pay off, but it wasn’t an easy task.
In most scenes, up to five puppeteers moved animatronic eyes, head and arms, as VFX supervisor Richard Bluff told The Hollywood Reporter. But there was also a “stuffy” version that could be held in the background when the Child was out of focus.
Additionally, a CGI version of the character was created for “the rare occasion that we needed CG for the performance. It had to match the puppet exactly,” Bluff said.
Daisy Ridley secured her role through a Kylo Ren interrogation
A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams was looking to cast a relative unknown for the role of Rey in the sequel trilogy.
Daisy Ridley, who eventually won the part, had to audition five times — and survive an interrogation by the villainous Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).
In a behind-the-scenes documentary, Abrams said she got the role when he saw the complex range of emotions Ridley could display while being interrogated by Driver.
George Lucas was influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress
Japanese director Akira Kurosawa may have had the largest influence over Lucas’ work. The unique storytelling in Kurosawa’s 1958 epic The Hidden Fortress helped Lucas realize how he wanted to tell Star Wars.
“[The Hidden Fortress’] story was told from the two lowest characters,” Lucas said on the film’s Blu-Ray special features. “I decided that that would be a nice way to tell the Star Wars story, which is to take the two lowliest characters, as Kurosawa did, and tell the story from their point of view, which in the Star Wars case is the two droids [C-3PO and R2-D2].”
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