1. Alec Guinness was an esteemed, classically-trained actor who ultimately became best known for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. He called the original script “fairy-tale rubbish.”
2. Nevertheless, to appear in the film, Guinness asked for and received 2 percent of the gross box office receipts for the Star Wars movies he appeared in. His total take: $95 million.
3. Harrison Ford, who played the iconic Han Solo and had far more screen time in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, took home a mere $10,000.
4. Actor Peter Cushing played Grand Moff Tarkin but just couldn’t bear the uncomfortable boots that were part of the costume. Instead, he took to wearing slippers and just made sure the cameraman never shot his feet.
5. The sound of the TIE Fighter engines: It’s an elephant call mixed with audio of a car driving on a wet road.
6. Before the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, George Lucas worried that he’d made a terrible movie. He visited his friend, director Steven Spielberg on the set of his movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Lucas was so sure that Close Encounters was going to be the bigger hit that he and Spielberg “traded points”: The directors gave each other 2.5 percent of the box office grosses of their movies. Close Encounters was a hit and earned Lucas some cash…but Spielberg has earned untold millions from Star Wars, a movie he didn’t work on at all.
7. Shooting the trash compactor scene required Mark Hamill to told his breath for so long that he popped a blood vessel in his face.
8. The buildings used on the planet of Tatooine are still standing, functioning buildings in Tunisia.
9. Denis Lawson played Wedge Antilles. He’s the uncle of Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels.
10. Right up until filming began, the name for Luke Skywalker was originally Luke Starkiller.