Mark Interviews 1980+

Is there a Life after 'STAR WARS'?

Actor Mark Hamill will go down in history as Luke Skywalker to millions who cherish that science-fiction movie. Now he's struggling to change his image!

Destiny has its quirks. Six years ago, Mark Hamill, then twenty-four, was tapped to play the hero of STAR WARS, a whimsical science-fiction adventure about a galactic farm boy's encounters with the universe. The movie, his first, has become the most popular of the twentieth century – or, at least, the one that has made the most money.

Mark was good in the role of Luke Skywalker. So good, in fact, that audiences never think of him as an actor. In a curious way, Mark had become a captive of the same film that brought him fame and fortune. Through its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (which became the third most successful film ever released) and the forthcoming conclusion to the trio, The Revenge of the Jedi, Mark's identification with Luke Skywalker is seemingly indelible.

Gary Kurtz, producer of STAR WARS and The Empire Strikes Back and a close associate of George Lucas, who conceived the trilogy and directed the first picture, recalls, "No one had heard of Mark when we were casting Luke Skywalker. We looked at anyone in the right age group brought in by agents. Mark had an assurance, a wonderful, naïve, fresh, looking-at-the-world quality that we were searching for." Kurtz describes Mark as "very gregarious, wonderful to be around. He's more perceptive than we originally thought. He's a very good mimic. He can pick up voice characteristics and mannerisms very quickly, then feed them back to you with hilarious results. He's much aware of the way people around him act --- that's one reason he's such a good performer."

"I'm the most famous unknown in this business," Mark says. "People know my name and associate me with STAR WARS, but they don't realize I was acting. They think I'm a kid. The exciting thing is to show them that's not true, that I can chew bubble gum and tie my shoelaces at the same time, that I'm funny, that I've got timing, that I've got an array of dialects at my disposal."

In person – at a press conference before opening in a play on Broadway or across the table in a Japanese restaurant eating sushi (raw fish), a favorite food – Mark has a high energy level. His hair is light brown, his eyes light blue, and there's an appealing play of expression on his features, still boyish although he has just turned thirty. Using his hands for emphasis, he slaps the table, rubs his nose, fingers his chest, talking all the while with passionate involvement.

"If I were really like Luke," he says, "I would be more than happy with what's come my way. I would just be relaxing in the California sun and not worrying about anything. I love doing the STAR WARS trilogy. It's so much fun, and I don't see it as a big mistake. It just sets up new problems," he says, referring to the need for going for "important" roles after this initial success. "Every decision becomes so monumental. So what if I want to do a larky movie like The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia?" he asks defensively, referring to his last film in which he plays a state trooper in love with Kristy McNichol. "There aren't that many movies being made today. Of the few that would require someone like me, either they were looking for an unknown or they didn't like the connection with STAR WARS."

The connection didn't bother director Sam Fuller, who co-starred Mark with Lee Marvin in his powerful World War II drama, The Big Red One. Fuller declares, "Mark played an incoherent drunk in a scene that ran four minutes without a break with more clarity than any seasoned actor I've seen in the last forty years!" (Ironically, the scene was cut from the film before its release last year but will be included in the longer European TV version). "To be connected with success is wonderful," Fuller continues, "but Mark will surpass STAR WARS if the right role comes along in which he has to go the entire gauge of the thermometer. I judge an actor by the stories he can tell – if he has no humor, forget it! Mark will knock them right off their feet – he's got more potential than any young actor I know," the veteran director adds. "When he did a scene where he shoots an SS guard hiding in an oven containing the bones of a cremated prisoner, he caught the ape-man quality, the tension, all with only the flicker of a facial expression. Even Lee Marvin said, 'My God, for a young kid, look at that!'"

"I thought I was much better in Empire," Mark muses. "I was a callow youth in STAR WARS, but then I thought, 'Great—people are going to see that there's a transition in the character. Maturity!' Then for three and a half months, I was the only human being on the daily call sheet. Under actors, it read, 'Mark Hamill. Part—Luke. Props—Various R2D2 units. Assorted Yoda units. Assorted reptiles and snakes.' So it got real lonely. I got to be friends – sort of—with a twenty-two feet anaconda. They made the swampland set in the studio so real that the snake got lost in it. By the time we finished shooting, we had our own mosquitoes!"

The future Luke Skywalker was born in Oakland, California, fourth among seven children. His father was a naval captain. Mark developed his skill at making people laugh by way of gaining attention as a child.

"There was a lot of camaraderie in the family," he says, "as well as intense rivalry. And we moved all the time—California, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Japan. If you talk to twenty-five people who knew me when I was younger, they'd probably all have different impressions of me, because I'm always affected by my environment."

As a kid, Mark was an organizer. "I had a big imagination," he says. "I would get all the other kids to act out gigantic scenarios of lost worlds and dinosaurs." By the seventh grade, when he played a burglar in a comedy and got all the laughs, he knew acting was for him. "I didn't tell people, because I was afraid they would think I was weird, and I didn't know how you went about getting into it, either. I just did all the plays in the community. When some theater needed a boy for Life with Father, boom, down I went!"

He finished high school in Japan. "I loved it," he says. "I had an independence – taxis were cheap, you could take trains all over the country, it was a real adventure to go on a shopping excursion. I dated Japanese girls." From being considered a "goofball" as a freshman, he went on to become president of the student body as a senior.

After he returned from Japan, Mark studied theater for a couple of years at Los Angeles City College, then appeared in a stage play that won him an agent. He worked steadily on TV, building a reputation for versatility, doing comedy roles as well as dope-crazed killers, including nine months appearing in General Hospital.

Mark met his wife, Marilou, a dental hygenist, at a dentist's office in Los Angeles, where he had gone to meet his agent. "He called me that night," says Marilou, a slim, dark-haired woman with a pleasant smile, "and we went out for a year and a half." Married three years ago, they are proud parents of two-year-old Nathan, who was born in England. "He's named after Nathaniel Hawthorne and the hot dog, sort of," Mark says quizzically, referring to Brooklyn's well-known delicatessen, Nathan's Famous. (He spent one of his happiest boyhood years in the borough with his family.)

Before Nathan came along, Mark and Marilou did a great deal of traveling. "I became the professional promotion man for STAR WARS and Empire," he explains. "I became the goodwill ambassador, Mr. Smiling Jack. They'd call me, then I'd go off to Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo." Mark resented not being given a chance to try out for other films produced by the same studio, like Tribute and Breaking Away, even though he was so cooperative. "They didn't know what to do with me," he says with a bitter edge to his voice. "I wasn't a man. I wasn't a boy, I wasn't a teenager. I couldn't get an audition. 'No, that's all right, we've seen him in STAR WARS,'" he says, mimicking an impatient movie director.

Producer Kurtz agrees. "The disappointing thing in our business is that if you do something that turns out to be popular, everyone else wants you to do another role just like the one you've already done. I've seen Mark do other things – he's very promising as an all-range actor." When nothing came along, Mark decided to move to New York and try the stage before beginning The Revenge of the Jedi next January. "Elizabeth McCann and Nelle Nugent, two of the classiest producers on Broadway, asked me to audition for The Elephant Man. It was a challenge," he says. "I always ask myself, 'Would Al Pacino do it? Would James Dean do it?' The answer was yes." He played the title role in The Elephant Man on Broadway for the final three weeks of its run.

"This is a new beginning for me," the actor says of living in New York, being in the thick of things. "We've retained the California house, but that will be like a holiday home. I love working in films, and I'm a great movie fan, but there, I was frustrated. I'm a good actor, and I want to go after good parts, wherever they are." His natural enthusiasm breaks loose. "If they offered me Sandy in Annie, I'd do it! I do great dog impersonations!"

"Before The Elephant Man, I was scared and paranoid," he adds, "but now, setting up my solo career, I feel as if I am getting out of my adolescence. I have an energy and freshness I haven't felt since I first went on TV back in 1970. And I am so thankful to be associated with someone as generous as George Lucas," – who gave principal players a percentage of the profits from STAR WARS. "He allowed me to afford to come here without worrying about feeding my family."

Mark's eyes are thoughtful. "As a kid," he says, "when I saw the Beatles, I thought, 'Gosh, I want to be a millionaire before I'm thirty.' But it's so empty! Now I pay more taxes in one year than I made in my whole life. I always imagined if you made it, you'd feel like Scrooge, with sacks of money that you could sit on or throw up in the air. But it's all on paper. You've got 'floating funds' and all these phrases you can't relate to. I'm still frugal," Mark jokes. "Like when George was working on Raiders of the Lost Ark, I picked up the phone and asked him for free tickets. I want the T-shirts and the passes and the little toys."

"If Nathan wanted to be an actor, I'd really be honest, telling him what an unsentimental, rough, and nasty business this is. It's not friendly. People don't want to help you. And yet, it can be the most rewarding occupation ever! I've done a lot of what I wanted to do before I was thirty. And there's so much more to do in this world than just sit around and wait and hope that this or that comes your way. You can go out and make things happen for yourself. The wonderful part about the future is that it's so unpredictable. Now all I have to prove is, is there life after STAR WARS? Yes, I think there is."

Seventeen Magazine, December 1981