I was fourteen when I first saw Alien at the theater, and I of course had to sneak in. The plan was simple (common, though not foolproof): we paid for 1941 and then, sometime after the movie started, we ducked into Alien – at about the moment where John Hurt leans over the egg and gets clamped-on by the face-hugger. I knew (I don't remember how, but I knew) that thing was going to burst out of his chest, so I was prepared to witness the worst. Alas, foreknowledge didn't really soften the blow as I was profoundly repulsed, and since then impressed by the audacity of it (and, yeah... over the years repulsed again and again). Yet seeing the chestburster for the first time wasn't as big a surprise to me, or any of us, as it was to Yaphet Kotto . As he explains in our exclusive interview below, "It was real, man. We didn't see that thing coming."

Alien, which gets a souped-up re-release that opens on Wednesday, is just one moment in Yaphet Kotto's thirty-plus-year film career; a career including more than seventy films, among them: Live and Let Die, Brubaker, Midnight Run, The Running Man and the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair.And there was almost another high-profile film... I call myself a Star Wars fan, yet I was unaware Kotto was first offered the role of Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back. (Always learning, I am.) But he wasn't interested in staying in space. "It's funny," says Kotto, "I keep getting scripts for the same old thing, and I just want to do something different."

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Have you seen it since?With the new stuff in it?You're going to be knocked out, man.Years ago when we were making [Alien], and when we got through doing it, and when it came out, people said, "We saw Alien!" And I said, "No, you didn't see Alien yet. One day you will."That's what I've always said, "You didn't see Alien." But you're going to see Alien now.No, I'm going to see it tonight with you. Topsy-turvy, man. I am so excited to see this.Oh, man. (He laughs.) When I heard those scenes were gone, man, I went into a slump. I said, "Aw, man... where's our movie?"Yeah, I was there for four months, and I was glad to get back because I'd just done Live and Let Die there. And so, I went back there and worked with the old crew again on Alien and I said, "I'm back!" I was happy to do that.I'm a good actor.Actually, I didn't audition.Nope, they sent me the script and eventually made me an offer.I was coming off a couple of big hits though. Live and Let Die was a huge success all over the world and then Blue Collar had critical acclaim, so, I think it was Live and Let that put me in kind of like a prominent position.I read the script and I had two other offers to do two other films. And one of the offers I had was for two million, five hundred thousand dollars. This was a big jump. Live and Let Die I practically did for nothing, you know, a hundred and fifty thousand or something at that time. So to go from that kind of money to this offer I had, I went "Wow! Look at this!"But the trouble was that was for another film. There was, at the time, no offer for Alien. So I said to my agent, "What about the Alien movie? Have they talked to you about that?""No""When are they going...""I don't know."I said, "Do you think they'll be going in a couple of months?""They could. They could go next year, they could go today."I said, "Well... what are we going to do?"He said, "Take the offer that you've got in hand."I said, "No man, I can't. I've just read the script and this is unbelievable. What if I take this movie and they call you back and say 'We want him for Alien?'"He said, "What? This is more money than you've ever been offered in your whole career!"I said, "I can't do it, man, I can't do it.""What if Alien offers a lot less?"I said, "I don't care if Alien offers me nothing. Really. Turn the movie down and let's wait for Alien. Let's see what they do."He said, "You're taking a shot, they may not want you.""Well, I've got to do it. I have to do it."Yeah, that's true. But, that didn't matter to me.I was offered the part of Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back by Irvin Kershner, who had just directed me the year before in Raid on Entebbe.Yes.Yeah, [Kershner] said, "Come over here." So I left my Alien crew and went over and sat down with him and he says, "You're gonna stay in space."I said, "Why?"He said, "I'm doing Empire Strikes Back and you're going to be in it.I said, "No, I'm not" (he laughs).No, Brubaker. And I wanted to get back down on Earth. I was afraid that if I did another space film after having done [Alien] then I'd be typed.