The Actor’s Side is back with a whole new season of movie awards contenders in rich conversation.
Joining me this week is Mark Hamill, who is getting buzz for his performances in two movies adapted from Stephen King works including his acclaimed role in The Life of Chuck and the sociopathic military leader in The Long Walk. This holiday season he is also featured in The SpongeBob Movie: The Search for SquarePants.
We talk about all of that, but first we take a deep dive into Star Wars, his relationships with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, as well as George Lucas, and a hilarious story about the very unique audition and screen test he did to get the role of Luke Skywalker. Actually it was a joint audition overseen by Brian De Palma scouting older actors for Carrie, and Lucas looking for the young Luke Skywalker. He didn’t get Carrie, but the rest is history regarding Skywalker. But just for our cameras he re-creates his screentest and performs the dialogue from the Star Wars script he was asked to do. It is an exclusive of sorts since this scene eventually was cut from the script and never saw the light of a projector. You can see why. As Hamill mimics Ford candidly telling Lucas, “You can write this shit, you just can’t say it!”
We also talk about the ABC comedy series The Texas Wheelers he had been in that, despite critics loving it and coming from the then-very hot MTM Enterprises, was canceled after just four episodes. Hamill talks about how that twist of fate made it possible to play Luke.
We also talk about his prolific career doing voice-overs (I literally show him page after page of credits just for animated voice over parts listed on his Wikipedia pages), and how playing the Joker for 30 years became a defining moment for him.
You don’t want to miss this wildly entertaining interview as Mark Hamill gives us his “actor’s side” of things. To watch our conversation, just click on the link above.
Join me every Wednesday for a new episode of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side, as well as every Monday for a new edition of my other video series, Behind the Lens.