{"id":19607,"date":"2025-09-13T22:19:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T22:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/19607\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T22:19:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T22:19:24","slug":"mark-hamills-all-time-favorite-books-by-stephen-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/19607\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Hamill\u2019s All-Time Favorite Books by Stephen King"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the past year, the actor Mark Hamill\u2014best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the original \u201cStar Wars\u201d trilogy\u2014has starred in not one but two adaptations of works by Stephen King: \u201cThe Life of Chuck<\/a>\u201d (2024) and \u201cThe Long Walk,\u201d which hits theatres this week, and tells the story of a group of teen-age boys who participate in a gruelling competition put on by the government of their dystopian society. Not long ago, Hamill joined us to muse about his favorite books by King, who he contends is \u201cmuch more versatile a writer than he gets credit for,\u201d and whom he first met in the audience at a film festival. \u201cI know I\u2019m a good actor because I was able to say, \u2018Hi, how do you do?\u2019 when my inner fanboy was, like, Oh, my God,\u201d he said. His remarks have been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

The Shining<\/p>\n

I went to see \u201cThe Shining\u201d on opening weekend, and I was just so knocked out that I went directly from the theatre to a bookstore to buy the book to figure out, What the hell did I just see? I loved it so much that when I was reading it I\u2019d wait\u2014I wouldn\u2019t read it in daylight, like down poolside, in the sunshine. I\u2019d wait until it was dark, sometimes after my wife went to bed and the kids were down, so that I had the optimum atmosphere. I remember enjoying it so much that I would slow down\u2014like, Oh, I\u2019m reading too fast. This is the first King book I ever read, and it\u2019s the one that made me a gigantic fan.<\/p>\n

The Dead Zone<\/p>\n

When I found out they were making a film of this, I wanted to be in it. I didn\u2019t get an audition, but I still read the book. It\u2019s such a fantastic premise\u2014this guy can touch people and get impressions of the future. It\u2019s so compelling! Anyway, the movie was great; Martin Sheen was perfect. I\u2019m not the kind of person who would say, \u201cWell, they didn\u2019t want to see me for the movie so I\u2019m not gonna go see it.\u201d I don\u2019t hold grudges, I\u2019m not like that.<\/p>\n

It<\/p>\n

I only recently read \u201cIt,\u201d which is so scary. I also saw the version with Bill Hader in it, which is more like the novel, where they go back and forth in time. It\u2019s almost hard to watch, it\u2019s so gruesome and horrible. I don\u2019t know why people like that\u2014but I also do. It\u2019s because you\u2019re out of your comfort zone, and it scares you to death, and you\u2019re just happy that it hasn\u2019t happened to you, I guess. And even though they\u2019re often scary, King makes things that are relatable. He doesn\u2019t write above the common man, and it\u2019s easy to put yourself in the place of the characters because he draws you in.<\/p>\n

On Writing<\/p>\n

When I met King in person the first time, what I really wanted to do was pick his brain. \u201cWhere do you get these ideas? And, in this novel, why did this happen?\u201d Then one day I discovered \u201cOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.\u201d This book is like sitting in a room and asking him all those questions. I can\u2019t recommend it highly enough, because it answered so many of mine\u2014not all of them, but many. It was exactly what I would have wanted to know if we had gone out to dinner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the past year, the actor Mark Hamill\u2014best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the original \u201cStar Wars\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,17447,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-19607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-disable-inline-signup-unit","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}