Burt Reynolds never made a sci-fi movie. He turned down two in the 1970s, but ‘Star Wars’ isn’t the one that got away

Burt Reynolds never appeared in a science-fiction film, despite turning down roles in two prominent 1970s projects. He declined Han Solo in *Star Wars* because it clashed with *Smokey and the Bandit*, and said he did not feel he had missed out; the article argues that passing on *Zardoz* was the decision he regretted.

Reynolds became one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office draws during the science-fiction boom that followed *Star Wars*. *Smokey and the Bandit* was the second-highest-grossing film of 1977, while *Star Wars* topped the box office and made Harrison Ford a household name. Reynolds said illness forced him to withdraw from John Boorman’s *Zardoz*, and he later felt bad about disappointing the director, whom he regarded as the best he had worked with.