Mark Interviews 2000+

Mark Hamill plays stuffy Actor in zany Summer Comedy

It's been 24 years since Mark Hamill played Luke Skywalker in STAR WARS. And like the lightsabers he used to carry around, Hamill's career refuses to grow dim.

On August 22, he'll open in the hip summer film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He also has a part in the upcoming film Thank You, Good Night about a rock band.

Hamill admits he was shocked when cult director Kevin Smith called him for a role in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He doesn't want to give too much away about his role. The film revolves around two goofballs who serve as the inspiration for a comedy based on their lives. Hollywood adapts the thing into a movie, but the boys have no profit participation. So they leave their New Jersey homes and travel to La La Land to wreck the movie.

Hamill plays an actor who gets really upset at this idiotic behaviour all around him. "I thought the only way this would work was if I was playing this really pompous actor who felt like he was slumming. He thinks he should be playing Shakespeare and instead he's playing a guest villain on Batman. And then these two guys come in and rock his world."

Yes, the movie has been called moronic, which appeals to Hamill. "There's something very appealing about a movie that's relentlessly stupid," he says. "I think it's like playing with one of those Etch A Sketch toys. You cannot believe you're actually lowering your brain cells in this way, but you love it."

Hamill only clashed with Smith over one aspect of the film. "I didn't think I should do any publicity," he says. "I always feel that if you overtalk a comedy, it's not funny." But Smith needed the STAR WARS legend to help beat the drums. After all, Hamill is an icon of sorts.

Of course, that wasn't his plan when he was a kid growing up all over the world. The son of a U.S. Navy captain, Hamill logged time in California, Virginia and Japan. He settled in California to attend Los Angeles City College as a drama major.

Hamill made his acting debut on The Bill Cosby Show (1970), and next did a stint on the soap opera General Hospital, where he spent 1972 and '73 playing good boy Kent Murray. He became a teen pin-up after a turn in the television movie Sarah T. - Portrait of A Teenage Alcoholic (1975) and a role on the television series The Texas Wheelers (1974).

But in 1976, after filming STAR WARS, he was in Corvette Summer (1978), not exactly an Oscar contender, but it kept him busy before shooting STAR WARS Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and then STAR WARS Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). In both movies, Harrison Ford's Han Solo character emerged as the hero with Carrie Fisher as his romantic counterpart. It pushed Hamill to the background.

"There was no jealousy. I wanted to get away from STAR WARS at a certain point. Big roles really do put you in a box. No one will look at you in a different way," he says.

In the years since STAR WARS, Hamill has mostly concentrated on providing voices for animated projects including the television movies The Powerpuff Girls and The New Batman and the CD-ROM game Wing Commander. He has also worked on Broadway in The Elephant Man.

Where most stars keep their lips firmly zipped, Hamill does not mind dishing about his experiences in the movie industry. But ask him about STAR WARS memories, and you don't get tales about Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

"What I remember most of all is that we were filming on the same soundstage in England where Stanley Kubrick was doing The Shining (1980) with Shelley Duvall. You would arrive in the morning and poor Shelley would be on her 74th take. Scatman Crothers could barely lift his hand to wave hello. He was on take 79. You would hear him mutter, 'S--, I gotta get in the car again."

Although Hamill may be an icon to his fans, at home he's a dad. In real life, he's married to Marilou York, a former dental hygienist. They are the parents of Nathan, 22, Griffin, 18, and Chelsea, 13. The kids have accompanied him to STAR WARS conventions.

"My friends and family say, 'Oh, Mark, all these weirdoes'", he says. "But I understand showbiz obsessions. You want to feel a part of something. And I'm happy to talk about STAR WARS. And believe me, it's still an ego boost when someone is hanging on your every word."

And what does he think about the last STAR WARS film, Episode I - The Phantom Menace? "Oh, I saw it," he says. "The sharpest piece of criticism I would have given had I been asked is that there was no voice of skepticism in that film. There was no cynic. Everyone was so serious. We had Han Solo saying, 'Yeah, right, the Force,'" he says. "That was a great release for people who have a thing for the innate corniness of a STAR WARS film."

Entertainment News Daily, August 2001