A genius, George Lucas isn’t always. Star Wars is one of the world’s most popular film franchises ever, but in the years since the first film’s release, the man behind the movies has repeatedly proven that the series became a massive hit often in spite of his wishes, rather than because of them. While this may not be the most super-secret declaration we’ve ever talked about on GFR, it’s worth discussing that Lucas originally rejected Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda, which is arguably one of the most iconic aspects of the franchise. It takes a bit of talent to pull off a Christopher Walken impression, but everybody knows how to sound like Yoda. Listen to Oz describe Lucas’ hesitance in the clip below.

As Oz puts it, Lucas wasn’t a fan of his vocal interpretation of the character in the beginning, and we might never have known the character’s throaty voice had Lucas stuck to his guns. (Or blasters in this case.) After initially rejecting Oz’s audition tape, Lucas went on and interviewed other voice actors for the part while The Empire Strikes Back was in post-production. Thinking he had no shot at the film, Oz was presumably surprised when Lucas contacted while on vacation and asked if he’d go out to the Empire set in Hawaii and record the vocal tracks.