Mark Interviews 1990+

Sounds like Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill will always be linked to Luke Skywalker, the innocent farmboy who becomes a Jedi Knight in the STAR WARS movies. A good guy through and through.

But when it comes to roles in animation, Hamill seems to wind up on the Dark Side. Among his voice roles have been the Joker on Batman, Gargoyle on The Incredible Hulk, Hobgoblin on Spider-Man, Dr. Jak on Phantom 2040 and Maximus on Fantastic Four. Bad guys through and through.

And Hamill's latest role is Threshold, in the upcoming, straight-to-video Gen13 animated movie, which should reach shelves in the first half of 1998.

"When I look back on it now," Hamill said, "some of the most interesting and challenging parts I've played have been in animation."

Kevin Altieri, writer/producer/director of the Gen13 movie, worked with Hamill when he was a director on Batman, but even he was surprised by Hamill's performance as Threshold.

"The thing that amazes me about him is that he does a lot of cartoon work, but that Threshold doesn't sound like the Joker and it doesn't sound like Mark Hamill either," Altieri said. "Luke Skywalker is Mark Hamill's real voice, with that high pitch. That's how he talks."

Hamill returned the compliment.

"I really admire what Kevin Altieri has done," he said. "He's created his own vision and stuck with it."

Hamill is part of an eclectic Gen13 cast that includes Flea as Grunge, Alicia Witt as Fairchild and E.G. Daly as Roxy. Hamill said there were some fun times during the recording sessions, which were directed by Jack Fletcher.

"I was dying to ask Flea for Jane's Addiction tickets, but how tacky is that?" Hamill recalled. "So I decided not to and just buy the tickets."

Of course, Hamill's best-known voice is his cackling Joker, who has appeared in four episodes so far this season in The New Batman/Superman Adventures on Kids' WB!, including the highly rated World's Finest three-part episode, in which the Joker teamed with Lex Luthor.

"I love working with those people," he said of the Batman crew. "They spoil you with how professional they are."

Kids' WB! has scheduled a new Batman episode for Feb. 22 called Joker's Millions.

Among Hamill's current roles on super-hero shows is the Gargoyle on UPN's The Incredible Hulk. Gargoyle appeared in half of the show's second-season episodes.

"I find something I like about him. In every character you do, you find something that resonates for you," Hamill said. "None of the villains I play think of themselves as villains. Even the Joker is this genius who is frustrated by the fact that no one recognizes his great genius."

"With Gargoyle, here is a brilliant, brilliant scientist who is trapped in a Quasimodo-like body. There's a poignancy there. It mirrors the storyline of Bruce Banner being mutated."

Hamill will be voicing Detective Armbrister on the prime-time, twice-delayed Blues Brothers animated series for UPN, based on the John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd characters from Saturday Night Live and a 1980 film. Hamill described his character as the "Neanderthal sidekick" to the series' main villain, Alderman Alderman.

"Since it's for prime time, it's a little more raucous, a little raunchier than what you'll get on Saturday mornings," Hamill said. "He's like Elaine's father on that episode of Seinfeld. (Breaking into character) 'Remember, that tough guy?' 'Pipe down, choir boy.'"

"He's like that, but, as you discover who he is, there are layers to this guy. He's got a pet parakeet, he lives with his mother and he's totally devoted to this cretinous Alderman."

Hamill said part of the fun of the show is that he's also tossed some odd pick-up lines, like doing President Clinton and Richard Simmons.

Hamill's comic book, The Black Pearl, recently was collected into a trade paper back by Dark Horse. He and co-writer Eric Johnson, Hamill's cousin, are working on bringing their script of The Black Pearl -- the original source for the comic -- to the screen.

The Black Pearl was recently optioned for television and film by Rehme Productions. Hamill said he is cautious, that it's just one step in bringing the story of quirky-loner-turned-tabloid-hero Luther Drake to the screen.

"I'm optimistic and we've cleared a major hurdle," said Hamill. "But we still have to get the film financed. We have credibility now."

Hamill said he's excited about the potential of possibly directing the project -- which would mark his directorial debut.

"If I don't direct, I will be banned from the set!" he laughed. "I can't see anybody else who has the feel for the material like I do."

It was that sense for the material that is at the core of why Hamill wants to direct The BlackPearl so badly.

"I didn't even really say, 'This is what I'm going to do to become a director,'" he said. "I sort of decided to become director by default in the sense that I became so involved and engrossed in all of the characters. Obviously, I wanted to cast it and meet the actors, and I had strong ideas about it."

"Maybe I'll hate it. Maybe I'll be a terrible director and be bored to tears and it will drive me nuts. Maybe I'll love it. I really don't know. But I figure after more than 20 years in the business I ought to at least have the chance to step up to the plate and see what happens."

Hamill and Johnson have rewritten the screenplay since the comics series came out.

"When we finished the last issue of Black Pearl, we realized that we had learned so much from the experience in terms of the economy of storytelling and paring it down to its most basic elements without having a movie being able to set mood and ambivance," Hamill said.

Hamill doesn't see The Black Pearl as a huge-budget blockbuster, preferring a "low-tech" approach, especially if it would be his first directing job.

"The constant in everything we've done with this is the fact that we play this in a very real world," he says. "Real in the sense that Fargo seemed real. It's not set in some alternate universe; it's not meant to be in a heightened reality."

Hamill, well versed in the history of comics, admitted getting a kick out of having his own comic book.

"Anything in pop culture is exciting to me," he said. "It's probably embarrassing if you knew how exciting it was for me to become an action figure as Luke Skywalker. I don't want to let on because that's not cool. But I was like major thrilled about the comic -- just to work in a realm I love very much."

"I just loved it. It's like when I did a Broadway musical. I'd seen them before, but I'd never experienced them professionally. It was a whole different form to express yourself in."

While the process of putting The Black Pearl comes together, Hamill will continue his animated adventures. He recently joined Brendan Fraser, Jennifer Hale, Leonard Nimoy and John Rhys-Davies in the voice cast of Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists, which will employ 3-D motion-capture technology. Recording began in early February.

Hamill also contributed to Wing Commander Prophecy, the fifth in the CD-ROM game series, continuing his involvement with that franchise.
"The game element is the best yet," Hamill said. "They really listened to the public reaction from the last Wing Commander and with this one there will be more game, less movie."

There also will be a Wing Commander feature film, but Hamill said he probably won't be involved.

"It'll go back about 20 years, and no matter what kind of William Shatner wig or all the makeup they give me, I can't pass for 20 years old," Hamill said, laughing. "I seem to have this knack for associating with franchises that go back in time."

Hamill said he loves the anonymity of voice work.

"You are completely liberated from how you look and that gives you a freedom you don't have in live-action, where people can see you," he said. "People would never guess it's me in some of these roles."

"There's nothing more invigorating and exciting to me than trying things that you've never tried before. People don't really understand that. They want to know why you wouldn't rather be on a TV series about a detective with a talking dog."

Comic Book Continuum, February 1998