How One Of Empire Strikes Back's Most Famous Lines Caused Frustration (And Fainting)
Sometimes there's an exchange in a movie that is so perfect, so natural and in character, that you have to assume it was the result of a deep, thorough writing process with all the top creative minds. The "I love you," "I know" exchange between Han and Leia in the last act of "The Empire Strikes Back" is one of those magical movie moments that perfectly captures their characters and is delivered with all the charisma of those wonderful actors at the top of their game.
It's fairly common trivia that Harrison Ford's "I know" wasn't pre-planned. In the original script he responded with the more sentimental "I love you, too," but something about that didn't work for director Irvin Kershner. In a 2014 interview with StarWars.com, Kershner recalls that the crew was mighty angry at him the day they shot that scene because he refused to move on when they got Ford's delivery of "I love you, too," in the can.
The carbonite chamber set was hot, the little people playing the Ugnaughts, covered in layers of foam latex, were fainting from the heat, and chaos was threatening to overtake the set.
"It was very hot that day, we had steam shooting in our faces, the dwarves were falling apart, many were fainting from the heat and I said, 'No, it's not right.' And everybody wanted to go to lunch, it was the last shot. And I said, 'No, I tell ya, we got that on film. Let's try to get a better line.' 'Well, what do you want?' 'I don't know, try this,' so I kept giving Harrison lines so we kept shooting."
If you've ever been on a film set before you know the last thing you want to do is try the patience of a hungry crew.
Kershner had to convince Lucas to include the line
They tried a few different lines and when Kershner finally got the "I know," he was satisfied. That fit the character of Han Solo and Ford delivered it with enough love to not come across like a complete jerk. A lot of the folks on the crew were puzzled because that didn't seem like it'd work, and they weren't the only ones!
George Lucas himself didn't think the line was going to work and he had a lot riding on the success of the first "Star Wars" sequel. He was deeply concerned that the audience was going to laugh and that would break the tension the scene was building towards.
"That was the only problem we had on the whole film. And of course, when we showed it the first time we were going to show it twice, two days in a row, one day with the line from the script, one day with 'I know.' And we showed it first 'I know.' And the audience broke up. And so we were sitting next to each other and he turned to me and he said 'Well, yeah, you know, but they're gonna laugh...yeah, ok, ok, we'll use it.'"
Lucas was half right. That line does evoke laughter from the audience, but it's a much-needed release of tension just before things get deadly serious again and has remained one of the most famous exchanges in cinema history. It just goes to show that despite the brutal conditions for the actors and extras in the scene, Kershner was right to listen to his gut and take the time to find the right moment to end that exchange.