Harrison Ford allegedly tried to get a "Star Wars" puppeteer fired from the iconic franchise after the man made a joke at the actor's expense.
Tim Rose, the puppeteer who played the beloved Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars, said Harrison wanted him fired from "Return of the Jedi."
The moment in which Tim caught Harrison's ire came during the iconic scene when Han Solo gets unfrozen from carbonite. As Carrie Fisher character, Princess Leia, kisses Hans after the rescue, all the costumed characters and puppeteers chanted, "We saw you kissing!" The moment was intended to be fun, but Harrison saw no humor in it, Tim told Jamie Stangroom.
"Harrison went over to the director and said 'Are these puppet characters going to laugh over my line? Because I don't want to have to come back and do ADR (Automated Dialog Replacement)'," Tim recalled.
Director Richard Marquand then told the characters to do the same thing but "in mime" for the second take. Before the third take, the director sat next to Tim, who was still in character, and asked what the thought. However, Tim didn't realize that his microphone was still on and could be heard on the sound stage.
Tim, while using Salacious Crumb's voice, said, "Eh, this Harrison guy… is he gonna talk over our laugh? 'cause it's really putting me off."
The crew thought the joke was hilarious, but not Harrison, who stormed off the set and said he wouldn't return until the unknown wisecracking puppeteer was fired.
Tim said he offered to apologize to Harrison, but that wouldn't cut it. But, since Tim was only a behind-the-scenes character and Harrison didn't know who actually made the joke or what the jokester looked like, Tim said he was allowed to continue working as "the new guy."
Meanwhile, Harrison was happy because he assumed the man who made the crack was indeed fired.
However, all these years later, Tim doesn't hold any ill will toward the legendary actor. He said, "I'm at great pains to say Harrison Ford is a great guy, I just happened to misread the sense of humor and do the wrong thing at the wrong time."