Do you know the story of Harrison Ford before being Han Solo?

Today I want to present a curious fact about one of the most enigmatic characters of Star Wars. 

After moving to Los Angeles and having tried to enter the acting career, while working at home, Harrison Ford suddenly decides to become a carpenter, renounces the hope of getting serious roles as an actor and learns to work with wood books that request at the local library. Finds his first job in the construction works of a recording studio for the composer Sérgio Mendes. Parallel to his new work, he accepts any of the small roles offered in the cinema or in television series. 

In the course of his small appearances in film and TV, Ford became friends with Fred Roos, Casting director of Universal Studios, for which he often works. While working on a project for Goldwyn Studios, Fred Roos introduces him to a young director and writer still unknown: George Lucas. This meeting is decisive for his acting career.

 In 1972, George Lucas proposed him the role of the passionate about speed Bob Falfa, in his next film, American Graffiti. Harrison accepts because he considers the role important enough to involve him in the possible success of the film. To film his scenes he had to cut his hair, but fearing that appearance would make him appear with little character and thus away possible offers of papers that could be offered later suggests to George Lucas that Bob Falfa wear a cowboy hat. The film debuts in the summer of 1973 and raises more than twenty-one million dollars during its first distribution in theaters. Despite this success, Harrison recovers his carpentry activity because the salary of $ 600 he receives for the filming of this film, is insufficient to support his family. However, it makes his motivation to try to make a career in cinema revive.

Ford thus recovers his work accepting other small roles. After doing some work in the office of Francis Ford Coppola, he receives the proposal of a work of the latter in his film The Conversation, with Gene Hackman as protagonist. He should have played Mark, but at the last moment, Frederic Forrest gets the part; Ford, who finally plays the character of Martin Stett, is furious with this fact. However, thanks to this role, the name of a young actor begins to sound in Hollywood. 

Until 1976 he obtains some papers for television and sees with pleasure how his activity increased. During a job in the house of George Lucas, he asks her to collaborate giving answer to the actors in the casting for his next movie (Star Wars), because he does not want to audition Harrison since he wants to work with new faces. After helping him give several replicas to some characters, Lucas decides that he already has an actor for the role of Han Solo! And it's like Harrison jumps to fame with his first legendary character.