The Star Wars films aren’t just entertaining movies that you watch here or there – for some people, it’s an entire LIFESTYLE that their world revolves around. And it’s not just the Star Wars fan base that tends to become obsessed. It happens to the cast as well – whether they like it or not. With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in theaters now, everyone is on edge at the closing of this generation’s trilogy and while not everyone agrees with how it ends, it’s the end of an era for a group of stars.
But while we have our favorite on-screen friendships and love interests, not EVERYONE got along behind the scenes - meanwhile, others became lifelong best friends.
Here are 8 off-screen Star Wars feuds that carried over for years, and 12 friendships we are still swooning over.
20 Can't Stand: Anthony Daniels (R2-D2) and Kenny Baker (C-3PO)
One of the biggest and most known feuds in the Star Wars universe was the hostility between Anthony Daniels who played R2-D2 and Kenny Baker, who played C-3PO. Apparently, the word is they didn’t get along AT ALL onset (due to them already being uncomfortable in those overheated droid suits) and constantly talked smack about each other.
19 Can't Stand: Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Harrison Ford (Han Solo)…But Only For A Little Bit?
Usually, in the aftermath of an affair between a very married older man and a young star on the rise, things can get messy. This was the case between Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford when they had a three-month affair during filming. Carrie revealed the details and the heart-shattering fallout in her memoir The Princess Diarist
18 Can't Stand: Director Richard Marquand and Carrie Fisher
Things didn’t really go Carrie Fisher’s way during filming, and being so young, it had a negative effect on the rest of her life. For one, she and Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand couldn’t stand each other. “I hated him,” she said in an interview with the Daily Beast. “He fell all over Harrison, but he would yell at me constantly.”
17 Can't Stand: George Lucas and Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker)
George Lucas isn’t the easiest man to work with, according to a majority of his stars on his most famous franchise to date. Hayden Christensen being one of them. Hayden was an older Anakin Skywalker and felt that the director verbally abused him on the set so much so that he regretted taking the famous part.
16 Can't Stand: David Prowse (who physically played Darth Vader) and George Lucas
The first person that comes to mind when thinking of Darth Vader is James Earl Jones since he was the famous voice. But there was a man behind the mask itself, and that man was David Prowse. Prowse famously got angry at Lucas over him not using Prowse’s own voice for the character. It didn’t help that he also let some spoilers slip.
15 Can't Stand: Alec Guinness and the Entire Franchise
It just plain sucks when you hate the franchise you’re mainly associated with your entire being, but that’s what happened with Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi. Apparently, Guinness hated the character and the films so much that he begged Lucas to kill off Obi-Wan. “I just couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful lines,” he said to Entertainment Weekly.
14 Can't Stand: Terence Stamp and George Lucas
Terence Stamp, who played Chancellor Valorum in The Phantom Menace, didn’t come back for Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Jedi due to his bickering with George Lucas. He actually had a few choice words for the director/producer/creator in Empire Magazine: he said he leaned too much on CGI and called the filmmaker’s process “boring”.
13 Can't Stand: Harrison Ford and George Lucas
During that time period where Harrison Ford’s career was taking off, he and George Lucas would get into heated arguments on the set (Harrison even once tried to hack apart the Millennium Falcon but was stopped by Mark Hamill) and once even said to Lucas “You can write this s***, but I sure as h*** can’t say it.”
12 Friends: Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)
Mark Hamill had the purist friendship with the late Carrie Fisher, so much so that it rocked him to his very core when she passed away in 2016. Hamill said that Fisher “was able to make you feel like you were the most important thing in her life.” Hamill had never been shy about opening up about his friendship with his on-screen sister.
11 Friends: John Boyega (Finn) and Daisy Ridley (Rey)
If you venture over to Instagram and take a look at either John Boyega’s timeline or Daisy Ridley’s, you’ll find that they are basically “friendship goals” for besties. They’re constantly lifting each other up, which while yes, it does appear on screen with Rey and Finn, it’s just so much better to see that they’re that close in real life.
10 Friends: Oscar Isaac (Poe) and Carrie Fisher’s Dog Gary (who also starred in the franchise)
Everyone who ever interacted with Carrie Fisher later in her life also probably interacted with her famous dog Gary, who even starred in the films in the background. She took him EVERYWHERE with her (and daughter Billie Lourd adopted him after her mom’s death) and of course, Oscar Isaac fell in love with him.
9 Friends: Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams (Lando)
Everyone knows that really only best buds can get away with pulling pranks on each other. One time, Billy Dee Williams managed to pull the ultimate prank on Hamill when the cast of Star Wars met Princess Margaret in 1980. Williams told Hamill that it was “illegal to look royalty in the eye” and it was a punishable offense. This resulted in picture gold.
8 Friends: Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac
Of course, you just know that the cast of the most recent Star Wars films are all just as close as they can be, and they prove it every day on Instagram. Now that the movie has been released, they’re allowed to post pics of each other goofing around. Daisy and Oscar are clearly close in real life (and yes, she adores Gary too).
7 Friends: John Boyega and Harrison Ford
John Boyega always seems like he’s completely starstruck by Harrison Ford (“he smells like cherries” the young actor once said of Ford in an interview) and likes to poke fun at that friendship whenever they do joint interviews together. The younger actor is ALWAYS completely taken with the veteran and he’s not afraid to show it.
6 Friends: Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill
Apparently, Mark Hamill was the only person on set who can make Harrison Ford laugh, so he was insanely irreplaceable, especially whenever Ford would have a meltdown on the set during the original films. “I love Harrison,” Hamill said to Empire. “I got to stop him because I can make him laugh when he gets really, really mad.”
5 Friends: John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran (Rose)
Kelly Marie Tran was the victim of harassment brought on by online trolls who didn’t like her character in the franchise. And while plenty of her co-stars came to her defense, it was John Boyega who was the most vocal out of her friends. Unfortunately, Boyega “badly worded” a comment directed at her and he apologized profusely to her.
4 Friends: Lupita Nyong’o and JJ Abrams (director)
Like every one of her co-stars in the franchise, Lupita Nyong’o ADORED everyone on set, especially The Last Jedi director JJ Abrams, who she became extremely close with. Abrams even supported the actress in other projects, including when she starred in a play and he was there on opening night to see her perform.
3 Friends: John Boyega and Oscar Isaac
Plenty of fans (including both John Boyega and Oscar Isaac) were upset to learn that their characters weren’t meant to be a “couple” in the movies and in the last film, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be close in real life. Both of these two enjoy goofing off with one another in front of the camera and while they’re touring.
2 Friends: Lupita Nyong’o and John Boyega
Sometimes, when you star in a film together and you have amazing chemistry, you can form a life-long friendship off-screen. This happened to be the case with Lupita Nyong’o and John Boyega, who enjoy posing together as much as possible (especially when they’re all on planes together, as pointed out by Buzzfeed).
1 Friends: And, of course, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford (You Knew They Couldn’t Stay Mad At Each Other)
While Carrie Fisher admitted later in life that her affair with Harrison changed her entire world in a way she could have never imagined, she still loves him very dearly and that he holds a special place in her heart. “I’ll always feel something for him,” she said during an interview. And she did right up to her tragic passing.
References: cheatsheet, buzzfeed, vanityfair, nickiswift, thedailybeast, huffpost,
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