Young Han Solo Almost Joined The Clone Wars — And Darth Maul Voice Actor Sam Witwer Was Set To Play Him
The galaxy far, far away was almost a lot smaller: Han Solo was set for a surprise turn in The Clone Wars before the cameo was pulled at the last minute.
Here is a fun bit of Star Wars almost-history: George Lucas and Dave Filoni seriously considered dropping a kid version of Han Solo into The Clone Wars. And yes, Sam Witwer — the voice of Darth Maul — actually auditioned to play him.
The almost-Han that never happened
Witwer told the story onstage at Dragon Con 2025, and it is very inside baseball. The pitch was a young Han — around 10 to 12 years old on the timeline — crossing paths with the war-era cast. Filoni lined up a bunch of actors to test, and Witwer was one of them.
"There was a moment on Clone Wars where George Lucas was thinking about bringing on a young Han Solo... I know that Dave auditioned a whole bunch of actors, and I was one of them."
Witwer says Lucas knew he could pull off a solid Harrison Ford when needed — complete with the cranky, gravelly version. But he didn’t walk in and do a straight Han impression. Instead, he channeled Bob Falfa, Ford’s hot-rod character from Lucas’s American Graffiti. The logic is pretty sharp: if you are playing pre-teen Han, he is not the guy from the cantina yet — he is a kid trying to sound like the guy from the cantina. Honestly, that approach makes sense.
Still, young Han never made the cut. The Clone Wars never used him, and neither did Star Wars Rebels — even though both Leia shows up (as an early Rebel do-gooder) and Luke sneaks in for a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo.
So what is Witwer doing instead? More Maul.
Witwer is back as Darth Maul in his own spin-off, 'Maul: Shadow Lord', announced at Star Wars Celebration 2025. It takes place after The Clone Wars. The trailer has not gone public yet, but it screened behind closed doors — GamesRadar+ saw it — and it includes Maul trying to recruit a Twi'lek as his apprentice. Expect the series in 2026.
And the big-screen return
- 'Maul: Shadow Lord' (series) lands in 2026; set post-Clone Wars; private trailer showed Maul courting a Twi'lek apprentice.
- 'The Mandalorian & Grogu' (movie) hits theaters May 22, 2026 — the first Star Wars film since 2019's 'The Rise of Skywalker'.