Mark Interviews 2000+

Rebel with a Cause

Who would have thought the interstellar adventures of a young farm hand would have such a profound effect on Western culture? Not Mark Hamill, that's for sure! STAR WARS' leading man talks to Ian Spelling about Luke Skywalker's fight to save the galaxy...

Mark Hamill was fresh from appearing on the popular soap opera General Hospital when he landed an audition for a low-budget sci-fi movie from the maker of American Graffiti. The film was called STAR WARS and it was destined to make Hamill one of the most recognisable actors in modern movie history.

Although Hamill's portrayal of Luke Skywalker in the original STAR WARS trilogy proved to be his most high-profile outing, the versatile performer has successfully pursued a lucrative career in the 21 years since he left the STAR WARS galaxy. Hamill has established himself as one of Hollywood's leading voice artists thanks to his roles in everything from Batman: The Animated Series and Spider-Man to Scooby Doo and Birds of Prey. He also created the succesful comic book saga The Black Pearl and recently starred in and directed Comic Book: The Movie, a straight-to-DVD 'mockumentary' about Virgil Swan's battle to save his favorite comic book, Commander Courage, from being radically reworked for its big-screen debut!

With the original STAR WARS about to blast onto DVD, Dreamwatch catches up with Hamill to find out how he feels about his enduring association with Luke Skywalker and ask him about his current activities...

How long ago and far, far way does it feel like you made the STAR WARS movies?

Oh my God, it's like thinking back to High School! First of all, I haven't seen the movies in years, but it's like looking through your old High School yearbook. You can't believe your hair. It was really so long ago. It was like another time.

If we sat you down, dumped a large rock on your lap and forced you to watch either A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, which of the three films would you choose to sit through?

I would probably say The Empire Strikes Back is my favourite. I liked the darker, more cerebral feel to it. We established something in the first one, but I thought the second one was really challenging to the audience. I especially liked the surprise that we were defeated.

How do you feel about all the changes George Lucas has made to the original trilogy since their initial release?

Look, they're his to play with as he wants. I had a problem with him dubbing a scream into The Empire Strikes Back, because Luke had committed suicide. When Vader says, 'Join me,' my character made a conscious decision to let go and kill himself. To go back and put a scream in there changes the intention of the performance. That aside, I didn't really study the changes he made. And it's George's train set. If he wants to put up new billboards and scenery, that's his choice. I would hope that he wouldn't really radically alter storylines and performances, but what are you going to do? I'd never really considered it. I mean, who knew they'd still be making toys of me decades later?

What do you think of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones?

What I was pleased about was you have a guy who is the director and the writer and, most significantly, he is the studio. So what you saw with those films is probably the most pure form of autonomy we've seen at that level in the history of motion pictures.

Episodes I and II are not sort of the movies he wanted; they're exactly the movies he wanted. There was absolutely no compromise. So it was interesting in that sense to see, 'Oh, if he could have his way, this is what he'd want.'

The fact that they're very different in tone and feel from the original trilogy was probably his intention all along. That was probably his intention with the three trilogies (when he was going to make three trilogies); he wanted to make each one of them different in approach.

Your son Nathan made a cameo appearance in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. How much of a thrill was it to see Nathan in that, and was it a case of passing the torch?

You know, I have to tell you, I didn't see him. Did you? I was looking. It didn't matter. It wasn't about the fact that he was in it or there he was or how big the part was. He asked me, 'Do you think I could do that?' It surprised me because Nathan is an artist and he's a guitarist and he works for Matt Groening at Bongo Comics, which I'm very proud of. But he has no interest in being an actor. So it surprised me that he wanted to be in the film. I've seen photos of him in costume and the costume was amazing. We looked for him, but I didn't see him. Probably the fans who freeze-frame and see the films 600 times can tell you where he is. So it wasn't a matter of passing the torch; it was just a lark.

Coming right up to date, you recently made your directorial debut with the 'mockumentary' Comic Book: the Movie. Did you enjoy making that film?

Comic Book: The Movie is probably the most exciting project I've been involved with since maybe Harrigan n' Hart, in terms of personal investment. The film is highly personal. It's filled with biographical details. Some of it is altered and filtered through a funhouse mirror, but everyone in the movie - and even behind the scenes, the hair and costume people - are people I've worked with before on other projects. It was like one of those old MGM movies - 'Come on, we can rehearse in my garage and put on a show in my backyard!' There was a real sense of that when we were making this movie and it was personally gratifying that so many people were willing to work for so little or no money to help me get it made.

There's a very amusing moment in the movie when your character encounters STAR WARS actors Peter Mayhew, Jeremy Bulloch and David Prowse...

That was really a spontaneous thing when I realised that they were all there [at Comic Con]. I had to make some kind of nod to those movies, and I thought that would be a clever and subtle way. When I ask, 'Is anybody sitting here?' and the guy who plays Darth Vader says, 'Move along, son' that is my kind of humour. It's subtle. It's clever. If you get it or don't get it, you don't go ,'Huh?' If you don't get it, it still makes sense in the context of the scene.

Over the years, you've established yourself as one of Hollywood's leading voice artists. What have been your favourite voice roles to date?

I loved doing that Jerry Lewis character on Bruno The Kid, the Bruce Willis cartoon I did. I loved doing Larry 3000 on Time Squad. And, of course, the Joker is just so well written. Paul Dini is a wonderful writer and the Joker is such a rich character. It's true what they say about villains - these guys don't think of themselves as evil. If anything it's Batman who keeps ruining everything for Joker. The Joker is unappreciated and that's how I play him.

Speaking of the Joker, you voiced the character in the short-lived live-action series Birds of Prey. How did that come about?

Oh my God! They didn't know I was going to do the voice when they shot the live-action part of it. It was tricky. They brought me in and I saw the footage. He looked terrific, but it was sort of like doing an Italian Western because you could hear the director saying, 'OK, now lift the gun. OK, now say the line.' The guy would say, 'Trick or treat,' and the director would say, 'Now laugh.' The guy would then put his head back and make a gesture of laughing, but he wouldn't laugh.

I was flattered that they even thought of me. I think it was one of those things where, at the last minute, they said, 'You know what? Let's give this some continuity and get Mark to do it, because it's all Warner Bros.'

What else have you been working on recently, and what's next for you?

I've been working on a show called The Wrong Coast. It's an animated satire of Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, and it's airing on American Movie Classics (AMC). I co-created it and I voice the host (Reid Sincerely), who makes Ted Baxter from The Mary Tyler Moore Show seem like a MENSA candidate! I'm also still trying to get a Black Pearl movie made. I've been working on that for 15 years and despite the fact that we've had rough waters, I'm not giving up. It just hardens my resolve to get it made. And I'm looking for another project to do that would be similar to Comic Book: The Movie - in other words, something with a storyline but that's also partially improvised.

Dreamwatch, September 2004