‘LUKE SKYWALKER’ ON RETURN, CARRIE FISHER
Thirty-four years later, Mark Hamill once again embraces his career-defining character in The Last Jedi
NEW YORK— When we last saw Mark Hamill in the Star Wars saga, he was a mysterious hooded figure on a jagged, remote island off the coast of Ireland. But in The Last Jedi, which Disney will release Dec. 15, Hamill plays a much larger role. Star Wars will buzz again — 34 years later — with its original hero. Luke Skywalker is back. “It’s just the calm before the storm,” Hamill said in a recent interview. “With something like this, it’s almost too high-profile for comfort.” Hamill, though, is a veteran. He’s been living with the glare of Star Wars for a long time. “The movie had such an impact, you thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I already know what the first line in my obituary is going to be,’ ” he said. “Which is odd and eerie.” Do you ever reflect on how much your life changed by a simple audition for a funny-sounding sciencefiction adventure more than four decades ago? I did a TV series called The Texas
Wheelers, which I thought at the time was really groundbreaking. We got cancelled so quickly but, if that had been a success, I wouldn’t have been able to do Star Wars. Fate is a funny thing.
After all these years, how did it feel to be Luke again?
A thing that felt maybe wrong about coming back was the fact that the original trilogy had a beginning, a middle and an end. But there’s two ways of looking at that. On the one hand, it had closure. But if you look at it another way, it’s the story of how Luke went from (being) a farm boy to a Jedi and then the story ends. It would be like telling the story of how James Bond got his licence to kill and became 007, and the story ends.
So you had some hesitation?
When they asked me to come back, it was scary. I thought, “Gee, it was hard to catch lightning in a bottle the first time. I don’t know if this is such a wise idea.” When we left, even if they were going to do a third trilogy, it wouldn’t have anything to do with us. George (Lucas) never said you’re going to do three more. Did this feel like a different Luke? It sounds as though this is a darker version of the character that may be unfamiliar to fans and even to you. Absolutely. Luke changed, I think, more than the other characters in the original trilogy, from callow farm boy to a Jedi in training to finally a Jedi Master. What you’re talking about is what really fascinated me. Between
Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, there’s just decades of history that’s unknown. So I was wondering how they’re going to handle all this . . . I was saying to Rian Johnson: I need to know my back story. It was kind of unclear. You read where he is now and what he’s doing now and sort of have to fill in the blanks for yourself. Does it feel different to be putting out a Star Wars movie without Carrie Fisher, who died in December, and Harrison Ford, who exited with The Force Awakens? It is different. She was irreplaceable. I hate that it adds an air of melancholy to the film because it doesn’t deserve it. I know for a fact she would obviously want us to be having fun. She was all about laughter and enjoying the moment. We’re all sort of having this communal period of grief. In a way, it sort of reflects the movies themselves, which were about triumphs and tragedies. They are about a family, a dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.