Many Star Wars fans might be surprised to hear that Harrison Ford, who played Han Solo, actually ad-libbed some of his most famous lines. Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) recently revealed a few instances of Harrison’s ad-libbing in a recent interview.
For example, in The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) says “I love you,” to Han before he is frozen in carbonite. The script called for him to say “Just remember that, ’cause I’ll be back.” If you’re a big fan, you probably remember he said, “I know,” instead.
Harrison Ford ad-libbed an iconic scene in ‘Star Wars’
The actor reportedly had a lot of ideas for ad-libbing. He would sometimes just ad-lib while filming, ignoring the original script instead of asking about it beforehand. However, in the case of the “I know,” line he reportedly talked it over with the director Irvin Kershner.
Mark said, “I remember Harrison saying to me — he came up with such great ad-libs. ‘I got him; I got him,’ I said. He goes, ‘Great kid.’ Then he added, ‘Don’t get cocky.’ I thought, are you kidding me? I just loved it. I admired him so much with that.”
He continued, “[Ford] said, ‘Well, you should learn Mark. Don’t go ask George, ‘Hey George, can I say this?’ Just do it on camera!’ That was his technique. Whatever you ad-lib, eventually they take it down like a stenographer and incorporate it into the published script. So you would never know that we added anything because it’s all written down.”
That’s crazy! I never knew such an iconic line was ad-libbed by Harrison Ford himself. Watch the iconic scene again below: