Jodie Foster reveals why she turned down Princess Leia in ‘Star Wars’

Jodie Foster has revealed she was originally offered the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars, but had to pass on the opportunity.

During an appearance on Wednesday’s (January 17) edition of The Tonight Show, the two-time Oscar winner recalled how she was approached to play the iconic sci-fi character, which would later become a breakthrough role for the late Carrie Fisher.

Foster had to turn down the part, however, due scheduling conflicts with the original Freaky Friday film.

“I was [offered the role], but I had a conflict,” she told host Jimmy Fallon. “I was doing a Disney movie, and I just didn’t want to pull out of the Disney movie because I was already under contract, so I didn’t do it. And, you know, they did an amazing job. I don’t know how good I would have been!”

She added: “I might have had different hair. I might have gone with a pineapple, instead of…”

In a previous edition of the US chat show, Foster recalled how Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese were “scared” of her on the set of Taxi Driver.

In the 1976 film, Foster played the role of a child sex worker named Iris alongside De Niro, who starred as a lonely Vietnam veteran with mental health issues.

“I was 12. And they had to say things like, you know, Can you pull his fly down?’ And it was a little awkward,” Foster recalled.

Foster noted how, because she had been on more film sets than Scorsese and De Niro at that point in time, her elder colleagues were somewhat intimidated when having to interact with her.

“Yeah, they were a little scared, Scorsese especially, who kept giggling every time he talked to me. He’d start giggling and De Niro had to take over,” she said.