RAY WINSTONE: EPISODE I's ALMOST BAIL...

Ray Winstone as British triple agent "Mac" George Michale in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Image: LUCASFILM/PARAMOUNT.

Fans of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL will remember British actor Ray Winstone as Indy's war-time friend turned baddie in the movie, Mac, but what you might not know is that the popular tough guy British actor was also considered for a role in EPISODE I-that of Princess Leia's adopted father Bail Organa (eventually played by Adrian Dunbar before the part was changed and Organa became the then excised Bail Antilles instead)- when Casting Director Robin Gurland began her 1996/1997 worldwide hunt for actors in the first of the new Prequel films. Unfortunately, Winstone's first meeting with George Lucas didn't go very well, as the actor told the UK lad's magazine FHM in it's October 1999 issue:

FHM: You met with George Lucas for a role in THE PHANTOM MENACE. What happened?


WINSTONE: I met him in a hotel in the West End. I was up for the Princess's stepfather or something. I'd been out the night before, while he'd obviously got jet-lag because all he did was yawn. When I walked in he obviously knew I wasn't right for the part, but instead of saying "Nice to meet you, Ray" and making small-talk, he never looked at me. So I told him, "Why don't we both have a 15-minute sleep and then I'll f++k off." Then again, that sort of film would bore the arse off me-all that blue-screen work."

Hopefully, when Lucas and Winstone next met for Indy IV, things were a lot better between the pair!