Mark Interviews 2000+

For Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker was a long time ago

There's more to Mark Hamill than Luke Skywalker.

The man most famous for playing the callow farm boy turned Jedi knight in the original STAR WARS trilogy has spent his years outside the galaxy far, far away on Broadway stages and doing a series of voice-acting gigs, such as providing the vocal cords for Batman's arch-enemy The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.

Now he takes his turn in the director's chair with the direct-to-DVD movie Comic Book: The Movie. It's a wry love letter to the fans of the comic book genre and a back-handed indictment of Hollywood's bastardization of beloved comic book heroes into lackluster films.

Speaking by telephone from New York City, Hamill talked about his love for genre fans, his turn behind the camera and his feelings about the Hollywood machine.

So, after years of being hounded by STAR WARS fans, how do you really feel about genre fans?

I love them. I love comic book fans, too. What people don't know about me is that their passion and enthusiasm are so very much in my own soul. I'm probably more like them than they could ever imagine.

So your love of these fans led you to do Comic Book: The Movie?

Absolutely. I think these fans make a great story. Their enthusiasm is so genuine. They know their characters and worlds down to the absolute minute detail. It's amazing. I mean, you meet these very interesting people. Some people go home, and they work on their motorcycles and cars. These people go home and build their own Batman costumes.

You play Don Swan, a comic book fan from Wisconsin. How do you draw the line between making him an obsessed nerd and a likable guy with a passion?

From the very start, we knew we didn't want to do a story where we were making fun of comic book fans. You know, showing people with bad skin, ridiculing them and so forth. I don't like mean humor. I like something with a little wit and cleverness. You strike a balance because you want your character to be a little flawed and irritating and obsessed so that he's funny, but you want him warm-hearted so that people like him.

You did a lot of filming at the San Diego Comic Convention. How were you received, Luke Skywalker?

You know, a lot of people didn't recognize me. I had a beard for the filming, and we were moving pretty fast. The fans are always great. The comic convention was acutely worried about us being there. They were afraid we were going to do something mean-spirited and harsh that made fun of the comic book fans. I kept saying, "Guys, you know me. I wouldn't do that."

There's great scene in the film where you, as Don Swan, walk up to a table with lunch and ask if you can sit down. Sitting there were Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), David Prowse (Darth Vader) and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett). They said, "Move along, sonny." Was that a shout out to the STAR WARS fans?

That's one of my favorite scenes. It's the only STAR WARS reference in the film. What I love about it is that it's something only a true fan would get. You wouldn't necessarily know Peter or David unless you'd been to one of these conventions or really been into STAR WARS. It's very clever and under-the-radar humor that's just for the fans.

The film uses a lot of voice actors from cartoons, people you've met in your career as a voice actor. What made you decide to put them in front of the camera?

Because they're all great actors. Hollywood sees somebody as just a voice actor and just sticks them in that role, and that's the end of it. These are creative, smart and versatile people, but they often get passed over for roles because they've done voice-acting so Hollywood thinks that's all they can do. I was thrilled at the chance to put some of these people on camera.

Comic Book: The Movie is really more a critique of Hollywood than it is of comic book fans, isn't it?

Absolutely. This is really a story about movie making and what a strange, difficult process that is and how things that seem very simple get so very, very confused and very, very silly.

Are you disappointed this film didn't get a theatrical release?

Obviously you want to reach the biggest audience you can, but DVD is a huge audience, too. We've made a very funny movie here and, hopefully, it will be successful and lead to other opportunities for everybody down the line.

So is the Force still with you?

Oh yes.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 27, 2004