When we cast the original Star Wars film all three of the main leads were pretty much unknown.
Harrison Ford had done a couple of small TV parts, and had a role in American Graffiti, but that was about it.
We made a summary for an open casting call and that went out to every actor's agent and actor's school we knew.
For Luke Skywalker, I recall we wanted someone about 18 years old, a farmer type; not very wise in the world and somewhat naive. For Han Solo the idea was that they would be about 25 years old and kind of a cowboy type character, with a devil-may-care attitude similar to James Dean in those early films. Princess Leia was supposed to be 16, but the rules of working with young actors meant she had to be at least 18 in reality to work long days. The brief for her was that she would be kind of feisty and strong and independent, with an ironic sense of humour.
With an open call casting you get through hundreds of people. We cast for about three weeks at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. The first open call casting was in September 1975, and then there were three days of video screen tests in December 1975, after which we made the final decision ahead of the shoot in March 1976. They were long days: about 7:30am to 8:30pm. You get about two to three minutes a person, and see 200 to 300 a day. That first call was just to get an idea of what we were really looking for: we were just asking them a few questions to see how they would react. If you got a six or above you were back for the next round, where we might start filming them on video tape.
George Lucas is quite good at casting, and he liked to cast someone who looked like the character they were going to play. Film is different to the stage, where any actor can just about play any part. The way you look is more important, because you're going to get plenty of close ups. So it's 50% acting ability, 50% what you look like and how you are as a human being.
I think Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher came through on the third day of casting. Harrison was an odd case. George didn't want anyone from American Graffiti, but Harrison was kind of around.
Our casting consultant Fred Roos knew Harrison very well, and he helped convince George he was right for the part. Harrison was actually reading against all the actors for various parts, but it was clear to all of us that he was really right for Han Solo. We looked at a lot of people: Sly Stallone, Tommy Lee Jones, all kinds of people. But Harrison – you can see in the test – was the best.
Mark Hamill wasn't our first choice for Luke Skywalker. He also was in a TV show, and he and his agent said he might not be available. He was good and we marked him as one of the better ones. But it was only because the show didn't get picked up that we realised we could consider him.
We were looking for someone who had that kind of just about to come of age quality. The 18 to 19 year old who wants to explore life. It's something of an archetype: you could place that character at any time in history and it would work, which is what we needed to make the film work for a broad audience.
I imagine the producers and casting directors for Episode VII will be holding open auditions for the same reasons we did. It's always difficult to see the actor in the part until they are there in front of you doing it. If they do anything like we did they will be looking first at their physical presence and then talking with them to get an idea of their personalities. They will be reducing it to possibly 10 people for each role. Sometimes they only have five. If they are rebooting the franchise they want these people in more than one film, so they will need people who have chemistry together.
Doing open auditions makes sense to me. Some of the more recent films they cast star names. I think they never bothered to test them with other people and sometimes when you do that there doesn't seem to be a lot of chemistry on the screen.
They are not going to be shooting it until next spring so they have got time to search through all these candidates. They don't have a script as far as I know, but they will have a good idea where they are going with the story.
I think JJ Abrams is a really good choice to direct the new film. From what I can see he loves the Star Wars mythology and the early films. He's a fine film-maker and knows how to present stories. The fact that they are doing a new trilogy and a series of separate origins movies as well means they have an opportunity to do quite a few different things. It might be overkill, but having all these characters doesn't seem to be a problem for the Marvel films. And Disney seems to have made a real success of those.
• Gary Kurtz is the producer of 1977's Star Wars and its sequel The Empire Strikes Back
• As told to Ben Child
