Lucasfilm enlisted a lot of very talented actors for the Star Wars sequels and how effectively the studio utilised them is obviously up for debate.
Now, Michael Fassbender has revealed he had conversations with Lucasfilm about the latest trilogy, but which role was he eyed to play? Josh Horowitz pointed to a longstanding rumour that the actor had been in talks to portray Kylo Ren, a character that eventually went Adam Driver's way.
"Who is Kylo Ren?" Fassbender responded, either playing deliberately coy or in the dark about who the villain is. When the host suggested he'd been in the running to star as Driver's character, the actor said, "Honestly, I can never remember the names. No, no, no, it wasn’t. No."
Rather than sharing any further details, Fassbender instead jokingly "revealed" the character he was nearly cast as in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. "It was Yoda’s grandfather; he never made it into the actual movie."
If not Kylo Ren, we'd bet on it being Poe Dameron, the Resistance pilot eventually brought to life on screen by Oscar Isaac.
Despite missing out on Star Wars, the X-Men actor has experience with sci-fi after a stint in Ridley Scott's Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Now, with new movies and TV shows on the way from Disney, Fassbender says he's in the dark about any sort of possible return as David.
"I have no idea; I didn’t even know after ‘Prometheus’ whether we would be going on another journey," he admits. "What I thought was brilliant about launching the Alien franchise in a totally different and bringing A.I. into it, I thought it was fantastic."
"And this idea of creation, where we were created from, and this A.I. has now become obsessed with the idea of creation and God; I thought it was super interesting. I thought it was such an inspiring tangent that [Ridley] took there."
There's always a chance Fassbender will get another chance in Star Wars, particularly with new movies on the way from James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
Hilariously, in the same interview, the Irish actor revealed he has another unexpected connection to Star Wars because he's frequently mistaken for Obi-Wan Kenobi actor, Ewan McGregor. "I've signed pictures of him," Fassbender admits with a laugh.
Hear more from him about Star Wars in the video below (via SFFGazette.com).