Mark Interviews 2000+

When the Force was still with Him

Ask Mark Hamill about his favourite "fan from hell" story and his face lights up.

The incident naturally involves the STAR WARS phenomenon and Hamill's performance as youthful adventurer Luke Skywalker in the original three installments of George Lucas's ongoing epic. But as he tells his "spooky" tale he's also allowing yet another glimpse into his own ambivalent feelings about a series that changed his life and about the idiosyncratic filmmaker who made it all possible.

It happened more than two decades ago at the height of the first STAR WARS frenzy, and Hamill was on a delayed flight from Canada to Los Angeles.

"There was a strike up in Canada and we had to sit on a plane for hours and hours while they found a pilot. We finally took off at 2 A.M. Eastern Time and we were landing in L.A. at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. It was a really surreal experience."

Even more surreal and upsetting was the cabdriver who picked Hamill up at the airport, recognized him immediately and began sounding off.

"This guy starts going on about how he was filing a lawsuit against George Lucas, so I said, 'Get in line. This guy's got a building with nothing but lawyers.' To make a long story short, this guy was going on about how Lucas was preventing the Antichrist from coming to Earth."

The driver's rant immediately set off alarm bells for Hamill who devoutly wished he was anywhere but in the company of this demented cabbie who could even have a firearm in the car, for all he knew. "When this guy reaches for the glove compartment, I'm ready to hit the floor. Instead it turned out to be something else, but I'm thinking, 'Oh my god!'" Hamill was terrified of letting the driver know where he lived, "so when we got to my house I directed him to go about a mile past it ... and then I got out and walked home. It was spooky. There are fans that can take things too far."

Hamill is 49 now, and looks it -- the passage of time accentuated by the ravages of the 1976 car accident that necessitated extensive plastic surgery to his face. He's surprisingly serene about a career that peaked more than two decades ago and which now mainly involves doing voiceovers for various animated TV series. He's also resigned to the fact that for the rest of his life virtually everyone -- apart, maybe, from his kids -- will regard him not as Mark Hamill but as Luke Skywalker.

"I'm not Luke but if it's in the public's mind, that's something I really can't control. On the other hand, it doesn't manifest itself in any way that's bothersome to me. If anything, people are really nice. I am prepared for the day when some toddler comes up to me and asks me if I'm Luke's grandfather. Time stops for no one, and these tiny tots think the original movie is brand new because there's nothing in it really to date it."

Furthermore, he doesn't mind sending up his own intrepid STAR WARS image, as he does in the current Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, in which he plays "a pompous fool" named Cock-Knocker. Indeed, the more he chats about STAR WARS, the more intriguing his views become -- particularly with respect to Lucas, a creative genius who has clearly earned both his reverence and his exasperation.

It was Hamill who years ago voiced the "sneaking suspicion that if there was a way to make movies without actors, George Lucas would do it."

If anything, Lucas's obsession with technology has heightened -- witness his enthusiasm for creating grotesque creatures like Jar Jar Binks (the most controversial of the new characters introduced in The Phantom Menace) in the computer. Hamill tries to be gentle and discreet on the subject. "I do know that like many people who are masters of technology, he enjoys himself much more in the editing room than he does on the set, barking out orders."

In fact he recalls that, for Lucas, the directing process was such an ordeal that he was unbelievably timid on the set of the original three movies.

"George would nudge some other guy to bellow 'Action!' because he would just be whispering it and no one would pay any attention to him. It's frustrating for him to try to communicate with actors because he doesn't want to get involved in the process that we have to go through. So nine times out of 10 his direction is something like 'Do it better next time' or 'Faster, with more intensity.'"

Lucas's tendency to resort to such phrases became an on-set joke. "It's a control issue. It's having to confront issues that makes George uncomfortable. So what better way to deal with that than to have your stars computer-generated? Computer-generated stars don't storm off the set and slam the door of their trailers."

So is it true that Lucas can't wait to get rid of human actors? Hamill gives Lucas the benefit of the doubt. "That seems a pretty all-encompassing statement ... . No, I just think he's interested in other ways of doing things."

On the other hand, Hamill fears that Lucas is becoming too remote from the real world up there at his Skywalker Ranch.

"The trouble is he's so isolated. Forget about rescuing the princess from the Death Star. I gotta go and rescue George from the Skywalker Ranch where he's surrounded 24 hours a day by sycophants who tell him that everything he does is genius. I mean -- when's the last time he jumped into a car and blew off for a cheeseburger at the A and W? That's what we used to do."

Mention the most recent STAR WARS epic, The Phantom Menace, to Hamill and he'll immediately tell you it's awesome. Then, minutes later, he's implying that it's less than awesome. Had he seen an advance copy of Lucas's much maligned screenplay, he would have been swift in his reaction. "If he had sent it to me, I would have said, 'There's no voice of skepticism at all. There's not one character here who's a cynic.'"

Hamill has fond memories of Harrison Ford, whose gruff Han Solo character fulfilled just such a purpose in the early movies. "One of the great advantages of having a Han Solo is that he can knock everything around and it acts as a real release."

"I'm talking about the fact that in the original STAR WARS there's a mercenary who can mock the Force, who might only be in it for the money, who could be the modern voice of cynicism. That was sorely lacking in this newest picture where there's nobody who's anything less than solemn... ."

But then Hamill indicates he may be going too far. "I dunno ... I gotta be real careful," he says impishly. He recalls complaining bitterly about Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original trilogy, because "it's all tied up neatly in a little bundle." Lucas heard him out and then gently reminded Hamill that the STAR WARS movies were made for seven-year-olds.

"He's right when he says fairy tales are always tied up in a neat little bundle, whether it's Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White. I guess I was doing what a lot of the public were doing -- becoming possessive of the material and forgetting the fact that I made it as a fairy tale for children. ... So -- what do I know?"

Edmonton Journal, September 10, 2001