Mark Interviews 1980+

Mark Hamill: Life after 'STAR WARS'

A young star warrior bids a final farewell to Luke Skywalker and looks beyond Return of the Jedi to a career as just another working actor.

What's a guy to do after he has confronted Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi? If he's Mark Hamill, he gets on with the rest of his career. "It seems as if STAR WARS is the life and breath of my existence," he declares. "As much as I love it, though, I don't want to feel that it's the only thing I can do. I would rather try to further my other career opportunities."

Relaxing in his apartment after receiving a standing ovation for his matinee performance in the title role of Amadeus, the 31-year-old actor reflects on the mixed blessing of being identified as Luke Skywalker. A genuinely modest man, he's surprised at the fervent fan following he has inspired.

"For the most part, I've really been moved by it," Hamill says. "The fans are very loyal, and concerned with what I'm doing. I can't help but appreciate their reaction, since I didn't have any of that when I started out.

But I also feel a certain resistance to it, because I don't want to go too far off the deep end. I don't want the acclaim to cloud my vision. Since I'm involved in the STAR WARS phenomenon, I have a natural tendency to try to make the water level return to normal. I keep reassuring myself that everything's still the same in my life.

Besides, I'm not sure if the fans are responding to me, Mark Hamill - or to Luke Skywalker. That's why I'm so interested in their reaction to Amadeus. Most of the kids come just to see me, but they wind up being spellbound by the play and ignited by its ideas. Many of them tell me they went on to read about Mozart's life and listen to his music. So, my notoriety can be used in a good way."

Merchandising Mark

Fueling his fame - and feeding off it, as well - has been the massive assortment of STAR WARS merchandising, not all of which meets with Hamill's approval. "It's the law of supply and demand at work," he observes. "When the first film was released, there was only a tee-shirt, a soundtrack album, a comic book and a novelization. Now, you can wear it, sleep on it and brush your teeth with it. And if somebody thought it would sell, I'm sure you would even be able to wipe your behind with it. Merchandising all comes down to whatever the market will bear."

Hamill has no objection to the Luke Skywalker material which utilizes his physical likeness. "They're buying and selling Luke, not me," he maintains. "So, I enjoy that part of it, because it's within the movies' context. I've always liked that aspect of popular culture. I was thrilled to be in a Marvel comic book, for example, especially since my father wouldn't allow comics in the house when I was growing up - which made them even more desirable."

Indeed, Hamill can identify with the collector's passion for possession, because he prides himself on his own special acquisitions. "I never bought any Beatles merchandise when it first came out," he laments. "I only bought their records, which I've always loved. When they broke up, a girl I knew needed cash fast and was selling her entire collection. I bought everything for a couple of hundred dollars. Now, I get great satisfaction from having stuff which seemed absurd to me at the time - such as Beatles nylons and bubble bath. It's like owning a part of my adolescence."

Hamill is even raising a potential collector. His three-and-a-half-year-old son, Nathan Elias, likes nothing better than to play with his STAR WARS toys. "At the very beginning, I asked Lucasfilm to send me one of everything," he laughs, "thinking I would just get a tee-shirt, a comic book, a novel. Now, my garage is filled with stuff. It's like a toy store out there. Nathan is a maniac about it, and loves everything. We didn't push it on him, but, sometimes, it's a little embarrassing when people visit. I have to keep telling them, 'I didn't force him to play with these toys. He just likes them.'"

Although flattered by the recognition he has received for his STAR WARS service, Hamill isn't content to base an entire career on his identification with one character. "There can be so many interesting possibilities in my work that I don't want to waste the opportunity I have, in case it should all be over suddenly," he comments. "I've always felt if it's not fun and challenging any more, and not a creative endeavor, then you shouldn't work. Instead, you should be careful with your money, so you don't have to accept projects you won't be proud of doing."

One project in which he was pleased to partake was the Seventh Annual Science Fiction Film Awards TV show, hosted by Caroline Munro and Hamill in June 1980. "I enjoyed that very much," he recalls. "It was one of those oddball assignments you never envision yourself doing. Everyone feels there are too many awards shows on TV, so the intention was just have fun and not make it into something it wasn't.

I've seen Caroline Munro in many movies, and was filled with lust and desire. When I was in school, she made me weak-kneed. It was funny to finally meet her when we're both grown up and married. It was unusual to see her in such a different context. I was expecting her to be wearing an animal skin loincloth and holding a spear. But she's really adorable - very sweet and down-to-earth."

Such an enthusiastic reaction isn't unusual. Hamill has been similarly impressed by other celebrities. "In this business, you often run into writers, directors and actors you admire," he points out. "It's a strange situation, because I never know what to say to them. For instance, I've met Paul Simon many times. What do you say to someone whose music has been so much a part of your life? I've never said anything like, 'You write great music.' I avoid that, mostly to put him at ease. Otherwise, it could be an embarrassing moment, and I want to spare him that feeling. But then I wonder if I should say something."

Skywalker Stereotyping

Although he enjoys his own celebrity status, Hamill has discovered his success can also have unfortunate consequences. In fact, so strong has been the public's perception of him as Luke Skywalker, that it has seriously limited the range of other roles available.

"Everybody and their mother has seen STAR WARS and The Empire Strikes Back," he notes, "so I can't help but be stereotyped. My best hope is to have the chance to meet people so I can show them my own personality. If I don't, they may not realize I'm acting when I play Luke. They may not think I understand the nature of my role and what's required of me. They may not believe I have a mind of my own. Of course, I'm only second guessing them - and I'm not the Amazing Kreskin."

Nevertheless, Hamill's guesses have often proven to be correct. "I went for the part of the younger brother in Ragtime, but Brad Dourif got it," he reveals. "I also lost a role in 1941 to Bobby DiCicco. That was fair, because at least I had the chance to read for them.

What's really frustrating is that I wanted to go out for such films as Midnight Express, Breaking Away, Tribute, The Great Santini and Ordinary People, but I wasn't even allowed to read for them. The directors all said, 'No, we know your work from STAR WARS.'

I was terribly crushed when I didn't get to read for Midnight Express. It would have been perfect to shake up my bland image, but the director, Alan Parker, just didn't want to see me. The studio was pressuring him to consider me, and he told them, 'Look guys, this is my movie.'

I don't want this to sound like sour grapes on my part, though. The actors who wound up in those pictures were excellent. It's just that if you haven't been given the chance to fail, you don't feel you've had a fair shot."

Remarkably, in spite of such treatment, Hamill doesn't bear a grudge. "This business isn't fair," he acknowledges, "which is precisely why there's no point in being bitter about it. Besides, Michael O'Keefe in Great Santini and Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People were both so good, that it sort of lessened the blow. It's not as if I feel I could have done those parts better. But they've been in films dealing with contemporary problems, which I haven't done much of yet."

That was one reason Hamill jumped at the invitation to make a cameo appearance in the recently released Britannia Hospital, for the acclaimed British stage and screen director Lindsay (O Lucky Man) Anderson. "I basically did it for free," he admits, "They paid my way to England and put me up in an apartment, but that was all.

There are directors I would work for immediately, without reading a script. Lindsay is one of them. He called me at home and asked me to do it, sight unseen. I didn't understand why he wanted me, but why question it? I only wish I had a bigger part. I was supposed to work for two days, and ended up working six. I haven't seen the picture yet, but even if they used all my footage, I don't think I could be in Britannia Hospital for more than two minutes. I play a TV cameraman who's involved in a hospital demonstration.

I told Lindsay I wanted to play the part like Harrison Ford - as an in-joke and a little homage to Harrison, whom I think is just tremendous on screen. However, Lindsay didn't feel that was the right approach. So, it's not as broad a jump from my own character as I wanted it to be."

To encourage further chances to extend his scope as an actor, Hamill is willing to make similar sacrifices in salary. "I wonder if potential employers are scared off by the success of STAR WARS?" he muses. "They might think I would charge them a million dollars, and want the deal memo first. The truth is: I didn't become an actor for the money. It's nice to get it, but that's not my motivating force - no pun intended. The more exotic a role is, and the more offbeat a stretch it will be, the more I want it."

Amadeus Acting

Mark Hamill is getting the opportunity to stretch as an actor with his starring role in Amadeus. "It's everything I was hoping for," he states. "It's more physical and has more comedy than much of what I've done before on film and stage. It's also a character part, in which I speak in a dialect. I'm almost unrecognizable beneath my wig and foppish clothes."

Far from being cast to exploit his STAR WARS reputation, Hamill actually had to overcome that image to win the role of Mozart. "I had to audition, just like everybody else," he concedes. "Of course, I had the element of surprise going for me, because I knew they thought I couldn't do much. I was hoping to replace Tim Curry in the Broadway production. It came down to me and Peter Firth. They told me I would have the role if he couldn't get his green card (for non-American employment purposes), but he did get his card. I was pleased for him, but disappointed for myself. So, I went away and did Jedi, and when I finished, they offered me the national tour."

In the touring production, Hamill performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, finally joining the Broadway cast in late April. As if the strenuous schedule of eight shows a week and the discomfort of life on the road weren't enough, his wife, Marilou, gave birth to their second son, Griffin Tobias, on tour in early March.

"I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this tour," he remarks. "It's been very hard on me and my marriage. My life consists of living in hotels and apartments, doing the play and having the baby on the road. And Nathan has been acting strangely, because there has been no constant in his life. Thank god, it's worked out all right, but I still feel badly. Acting is a selfish profession, and you must ask so much of your loved ones. If I do another play, I want it to be in one place."

It's no coincidence that Hamill was starring in Amadeus when Return of the Jedi premiered on May 25th. He deliberately planned it that way, even though it meant he would be less available for publicity chores than he was for the previous two pictures. "I thought it would be good for me to be working when the film was released," he explains. "Whenever a STAR WARS movie opens, it seems people go over my career to see what I've done in between. Besides, it feels like ages ago that I made Jedi, and I get really sick of talking about it.

I don't know if Lucasfilm is pleased about my being in the play, since I was always the one who wound up doing more publicity than anybody else. If I wasn't working, I would go on the publicity junket, because I know that's what George Lucas would want. I'm trying to help them as much as I can anyway, and still have enough energy to do the play, but I don't want it to eat me alive, either."

In determining which interview arrangements to cooperate with, Hamill follows a flexible criterion. "Basically, I just trust Lucasfilm to decide for me," he relates. "For example, they knew Cinefantastique was going to do a slam job on the picture, so they advised me not to speak to them - and I didn't.

It's not that I mind criticism, as long as it's constructive. I even read a negative review of Empire which made some points with which I agreed. One magazine reviewer went on and on dismissing the cast by saying, 'The three actors are back in the roles they're fated to play for the rest of their natural lives.' That was a real challenge to us, so I'm pleased that Harrison did Raiders of the Lost Ark, Carrie Fisher did Agnes of God on Broadway, and I'm doing one of the theater's most distinguished plays.

And I must say Starlog has always been a publication that everyone at Lucasfilm appreciates, especially regarding the way you protect information we want to be a surprise for our audience. The love you have for what you write about is obvious on every page."

Hamill Hoping

Understandably sensitive to unfair criticism, Mark Hamill hopes to find a screen vehicle unrelated to the STAR WARS saga. Choosing the right project, though, has been no easy task. "I would love to do a good horror film," he discloses, "but they're few and far between. I feel I have a responsibility to my fans not to do Lick the Blood Off My Mother kind of flicks. I keep getting offered the part of the WASP student body president who ends up with an ice pick in one ear and out the other. That's a real tribute to state-of-the-art makeup effects, but I can't handle it. It would be dangerous to do a picture like that one.

If I really want to stay in films, I might option a property for myself. Right now that is a premature idea, because I'm not sure if I want to produce this early in my career. But, eventually, I wouldn't mind purchasing a project through my own production company, and then, hiring my own director."

Fortunately, he is in a financial position to undertake just such a scenario, since George Lucas gave him, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher one-fourth of one percent of the STAR WARS profit, and an even larger profit participation in Empire and Jedi. Consequently, Hamill became a millionaire before age 30.

"It's an odd feeling," he claims. "As a child, you imagine a millionaire is just like Scrooge McDuck, sitting on big stacks of money. In reality, it's a more difficult situation. A million dollars isn't worth as much now as it was 10 or 20 years ago. You also have to pay more taxes, so you try harder to keep your money. I'm really a paper millionaire, because most of it is tied up in investments."

Even so, Hamill has already earned enough at a young age to gain the economic security which most people never achieve in their entire lifetime. "That's why I'm trying to make quality choices in my career," he emphasizes. "But sometimes I get fed up and say, 'OK, fine, I'll do Blood Girls of Malibu Beach. I'll take the $750,000 and the five points, and hope it goes through the roof.'

There is a breaking point. I half-jokingly tell my agents the sell-out date is 1984. If I'm not offered better quality pictures as a result of Return of the Jedi and Amadeus, then I'll set sail on The Love Boat next year. I'll just go in and do anything and everything."

Despite starring roles in a guaranteed cinematic blockbuster and a hit play, Mark Hamill still yearns for recognition as a serious actor. As he considers his life after STAR WARS, he realizes he must continue to prove himself. "It wasn't until I did The Elephant Man and Amadeus that the theatrical community sat up and took notice of me," he insists. "They would read in People magazine that I'm supposed to be worth $6 million, so they figured, 'Hamill's in his hot tub in California, coked up and not caring about anything. Why should we even consider him for this off-Broadway play in which he would get only $500 a week?'

Therefore, I would like the message to get out that, for me, the play is the thing. The role is what really matters. If you can make me comfortable along the way, that's OK, too. But if you can't, I'm still willing to suffer."

Starlog, August 1983