Mark Interviews 1990+

The Many Faces of Mark Hamill

Okay, I'll get it over with: this talented theater and film actor has had his face all over bedsheets, all over the world. In 1977 he became the hero of a modern fairy tale, and while he was acting out the adventures of Luke Skywalker, devoted fans were buying their own little piece of STAR WARS: posters, figures, books, and bedsheet art. If there's one thing Mark Hamill has over his character counterpart, it's a sense of humor. He has entered the world of cartoon noir as the voice of the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series. He also plays the point-of-view character Colonel Blair in the Hollywood-meets-the-future CD-ROM project Wing Commander III. Mark Hamill has been inside the American consciousness for seventeen years. Mark and I got together on the Wing Commander III set to talk past, present, and Playboy.

Did you know your wife was being shot for Playboy before or after you met her?

Before. She was a dental hygienist, and that's where I met her. She had that whole Playboy thing going on the side. And of course that got me going all crazy... every man's fantasy, and all that. In that dental hygienist's uniform, of course... We've played out the fantasy, gone down to the office on Sunday.

Was growing up a Navy kid research enough for playing Colonel Blair in Wing Commander III?

Both, my father and the character I was playing, were career military men. The whole situation was reminiscent of people I had grown up with as a kid, the type that I don't really understand. I'm not anti-military, it just doesn't strike a chord with me. It was something I could never do. But that's the fun thing about being an actor. You don't have to be a lawyer... you can play a lawyer. I probably got influenced, too, by various war movies. On Wing Commander, if it works out right, it's going to be one of the more interesting games out there.

It's your first foray into the world of tech.

What they can do on these games is amazing. Since I'm the p.o.n. character, you can turn my head left or right. Make me your puppet, why don't ya?

Do you collect your own action figures?

I collect everything but my own. Don't you think there's something wrong with collecting your own action figures? I've got the Batman Animated collection figures. I've been collecting Ren and Stimpy, The Simpsons, X-Men, Aliens.

Did you get to see the Predator/Alien crossover?

The double pack - I've got one of those which are hard to find. In fact, the only reason I've got that one is because of a friend. Sometimes at Toys R' Us I'll get recognized and make up an acquaintance with the workers and I'll get a phone call. But I'm looking for another one. I want to open it.

Return of the Jedi was filmed under the assumed name of Blue Harvest. Did you have to fool the locals yourself?

Not really. I don't think anybody thought it, you know. I think maybe just for preparation and all that. By the time it was assumed that those two words, star and wars, equal big and cash, so they're gonna jack up the price of everything. It's got a ripple effect, you know, when I try to collect. The other day, I was trying to buy a comic book; the guy wanted $ 3,000 for it, which was way too much. Then I let a confederate go back, and the price he quoted for him was $ 2,300.

How did you discover you were the Joker?

I think what put me on the top was the laugh. I didn't go out on the initial audition. They had cast someone else who changed their mind, and so the first six that I did were completed animation. Normally they animate to your voice. This time I had to dub the animation. It may have been called 'The last Laugh'. It's the one with Captain Clown, the robotic creature, and there was garbage scow in the harbor. There's one scene I remember where he rocks back and holds his side and laughs his head off on a barrel, and so I just let it rip.

Have you ever taken your role as the Joker with you?

Well, I'll be on a radio interview, people will call me and the D.J. will want me to do the Joker voice. It's a real gift to be that egocentric, that cocky. You can insult them - as the Joker, not as Mark Hamill. And people love it.

Does your son Nathan want to follow in a creative line of work?

Did you see Howard Stern's show on E! Television? They took a three hour show and cut it down to twenty-two minutes, and he was featured heavily on that show. He's always been artistic, he's an artist, he draws, and Griffin, too. But he plays guitar, and he's really, really good, I think. He was raised on a high protein rock and roll diet of the best of my era: The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, Motown. In fact, when he was fairly small, like seven or eight, he was a Beatlemaniac. Of course, he's your major, major Kurt Cobain fan. Music is what separated my dad and I but it's what Nathan and I share. I like Nirvana, NIN, Pearl Jam. And now he's got his own group. He's funny, real funny, but he's not quite as outgoing as I was. So far he doesn't have the personality where he wants that kind of attention. One actor type in the family is more than enough. Funny, I went and did a benefit for his school and I was surrounded by girls asking, 'Where's Nathan? Where's Nathan?' And you're thinking, 'Wow, this is my son!' The quiet guitar player cool guy.

I heard you held your own on Howard Stern.

Howard Stern is probably one of the most thrilling comedic minds of the last two decades. Unlike the standard comedian who hones an act and tells jokes, he's spontaneously funny and that's just pure gold. He takes just everyday conversation and finds humor in it.

What was your first acting job?

Professionally, I did a show that was a ninety-nine seat house in Los Angeles, like an actors workshop musical. Michael Plankes wrote the music and he's still making albums, still touring. He's got a cult following along the lines of Rogers and Wainright. At lot of the people in the business came and saw it, and that's what led to me getting an agent. I stayed in school, but I started going out on auditions and the first thing I got was The Bill Cosby Show. It ran a few seasons but it wasn't that TV juggernaut that was on in the eighties. It was the seventies and he played a basketball coach. It was a couple of lines, a small part.

Were you a basketball player?

No, no, I was a little nerdy, got kinda beat up at the beginning of the show.

What are your favorite shows you've been in?

Well, a couple that really stand out in my mind include Harrigan and Hart; it was a musical produced off-Broadway, until they changed it subtly, creatively; they changed directors and it flopped on Broadway. It did get me a nomination for outstanding actor in a musical. It had a little bit of everything. It was a musical biography, and the character I was playing was a comedian who was very gifted on stage and a very unhappy guy off stage. There was comedy and drama. And my best shot at a breakthrough role. That, and there was a show called The Texas Wheelers. It was an MTM show without a laugh track. It was kind of like an anti-Waltons show. A family of liars and drunks who fought with each other. It was ahead of its time. I played Doobie Wheeler.

Should I spell that like the Doobie Brothers?

It spells that way, but they all had weird names like that. Gary Busey was Trucky Wheeler, there was P.J. and Boo... they were white trash. There's been talk about reviving it again - not with us, but with another cast. It was a step towards oddity in television. We got incredible reviews. Time Magazine called us 'the greatest bucolic comedy since Lobacce Road'. I guess I have a special affection for these two projects because they weren't wildly successful and therefore widely seen. [Hamill takes a look at Axcess #4 and pauses at the Star Trek section] You know William Shatner and I were at the same award show once, an awards ceremony for science fiction entertainment. It was announced that William Shatner was going to get up on stage and sing Elton John's Rocket Man. 'Rocket -- Man... And I think -- it's -- going -- to be a long -- time". I thought that was hilarious and I tapped my friend underneath the table to see if she got it. She was laughing, too. It was a television award show, and the cameras caught us and put us on screen. I didn't think he liked that.

How did you feel about playing Luke Skywalker? He must have evolved for you when you were playing him.

That's it, you know. Of all characters he went through more changes. My character was a callow farmboy who grew up in front of everyone's eyes. When you have something that's got that kind of scope of time you can evolve. And he did. The original STAR WARS was intended to be a children's movie, and they identified with Luke Skywalker's purity of heart. They weren't yet adult cynics who might identify more with the character of Han Solo.

Would you do another STAR WARS movie?

But they're going backwards. Well, to work with George again would be a dream come true. That's something that would work out for me, but unfortunately the chronological order is going the wrong way. He had mentioned something -- and this was years ago so I don't know whether he's changing his mind -- but way back when he asked me whether I'd be interested in doing the final three, where there would be a place for the new young hope finding the old. It would be like a repeat of the first one except me in the Obi-Wan role.

That would then have to be way, way, in the future.

It's nothing I'm holding my breath for. In general, I'd probably do anything George wanted me to do.

Can you explain George Lucas' Wookiee philosophy?

It's a sensibility, it's a pure-of-heart thing. They say in the thirties there were people that where 'pixilated'. You either have a kind of Wookiee spirit or you don't. George was a Wookiee, he thought I had what it took to be a Wookiee. It's the fact that George believed that there were Wookiees in real life and animals could be Wookiees. His dog Indiana was a Wookiee. I thought first, 'Hello? You might be a little demented here,' but I started to see what he meant. And we started to realize that the Wookiees walk among us.

Axcess Magazine, 1998