Samuel L. Jackson is one of the top reasons why some people still watch the Star Wars prequels, but, apparently, George Lucas’ first choice to play Jedi Master Mace Windu was Tupac Shakur.
Coincidentally, Shakur’s Juice co-star, Jackson, would go on to play Windu, and help him acquire the only purple lightsaber in the saga’s history, but one can only imagine how getting a Star Wars role would have affected his all-too brief acting career.
According to an interview with 2-Pac Forum, former Death Row Records engineer Rick Clifford claimed that the late rapper told him he was reading for the part in what would be 1999’s The Phantom Menace which, despite his murder in 1996 (roughly a year before the film began shooting), sounds impossible to make up.