Jodie Foster Says She Turned Down Princess Leia Due to a Scheduling Conflict

It’s no secret that Jodie Foster was once up for the part of Princess Leia in Star Wars — a role that became iconic for Carrie Fisher. But in a new interview on The Tonight Show Foster explained that the only reason she passed was because of a scheduling issue.

“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 they did an amazing job. I don’t know how good I would have been. And I might have had different hair, you know?” She added, gesturing to the top of her head, “I might have gone with a pineapple.”

The Disney movie in question was likely Candleshoe, a kids adventure film produced by Disney and released in 1977, the same year Star Wars: A New Hope arrived in theaters. Foster doesn’t seem to have any regrets though. In 2007 she told Empire, “I don’t think I’m going to be on my deathbed going, like, ‘Damn! I didn’t do Star Wars.’” 

Elsewhere in the interview Foster discussed her work on the new season of True Detective, which premiered on Sunday. “It was an easy yes, but you never know,” Foster told Fallon of being part of the iconic HBO show. The actress explained that she did “change the character a bit” after meeting with creator and showrunner Issa Lopez. “My Liz Danvers is awful,” Foster noted. “We call her Alaska Karen… You grow to love her, despite her charade.”

Fallon also tapped Foster for a sketch called “True Confessions,” where she was pitted against the Roots’ Tariq Trotter. In the clip, the contestants took turns reading random facts and interrogating each other about whether they were true.