Mark Interviews 2000+

Fast Chat: Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill is playing a dance instructor in a Broadway show, and it offers journalists the undeniable temptation to break out a bad pun along the lines of "From light sabers to the light fantastic." In a recent interview, though, Hamill good-naturedly made it clear that he would prefer we didn't.

That's probably because jokes like that focus on Luke Skywalker - the role Hamill played in the first three STAR WARS films - and ignore the work he's done since. In addition to doing a steady stream of film and television projects, Hamill, 52, has made a name for himself as a voice-over actor, most notably voicing the Joker for the successful Batman animated series. In the mid-1990s, he wrote a comic book miniseries called The Black Pearl, and more recently he directed a mock-documentary called Comic Book: The Movie.

Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, the play in which he appears opposite Polly Bergen as the aforementioned dance instructor, is Hamill's first appearance on Broadway since he starred in The Nerd in 1987. Before a recent performance, he sat down with Newsday contributor Gordon Cox to chat about his return to the Great White Way.

In Six Dance Lessons, you're an abrasive motormouth to Polly Bergen's more reserved retiree.

What cracks me up is I'm so well-equipped for the part. I come from a family of seven where sarcasm and parody and needling and teasing were just part and parcel of the fabric of our lives. The play just jumped off the page at me because it seemed like such a funny premise to put these two characters who are complete opposites together. At first I thought that's what's so funny, that they're like Felix and Oscar. What I realize, though, is that we are peas in a pod. That's why we don't get along, because we're so much alike.

How does it feel to be back on Broadway?

I'm having the time of my life. The audience is the rhythm section.

Were you much of a dancer before you took on this role?

I really related to that Siegfried and Roy story, because when I read about it, I went, that's what they've done to me. They've so broken down my will to resist, like boot camp - at least in the dancing part whenever there's music on. Every dance is micromanaged, to the way you angle your hand. Within that context, you learn to just completely give over your will to pleasing your master. I felt just like that tiger, boy. At one point, my choreographer said to me, "You're becoming a dancer. Excellent." It was like I got a treat and I was purring. But I still count beats on some of the dances. It's horrible, because you're talking to somebody who could dance, and he could talk - this was before I did the show in Florida - but I couldn't do them at the same time.

Tell me about Comic Book: The Movie.

It's coming out as a two-DVD set from Miramax in January. I wanted to do something that comes from the fans' point of view, since I am a fan, and I know comic books, and I've been a collector.

All your life?

We weren't really allowed them as children, so that made me like them even more. In the movie, I play a high school teacher from Wisconsin who is also a golden age comic book dealer and collector. I tried to figure out what would look good on a $75,000 budget? And I thought, "Let's shoot the San Diego Comic Convention. It'll be sublime." I cast all of my voice-over friends.

You seem to really enjoy doing the voice-over work for cartoons.

It's so much fun. It's just like telling your kids stories with the lights out, where you do all the voices. The Batman stuff had a run of 12 years. It was some of the best cartoons I've ever been a part of. I'm so proud of those. And I'm doing a series now that I love. I play the host of this Entertainment Tonight-like show. It's called The Wrong Coast. It's a far-out, family-oriented satire of show business. That's coming on AMC on Jan. 14.

So, the Luke Skywalker thing: blessing or curse?

I don't really consider it. I can't. You can't live life spontaneously by always spotting yourself through the past. I don't complain; I'm happy to have a job. If people remember me from it, what a wonderful children's classic that is. It still touches me to see how it's affected people's lives. Sick children, or people that have no purpose in life, or people that want to stop doing this or this. The movies are as deep and religious or as superficial and greedy and merchandizing as you want to make them. It comes from you, not from me.

NewsDay.com, November 9, 2003