By George & Josh Bate
Nearly 50 years after his breakout role as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, Mark Hamill is enjoying a career renaissance. A few years after his critically acclaimed turn in The Last Jedi, Hamill impressed in the Netflix horror series The Fall of the House of Usher, the existential drama The Life of Chuck, and now stars as the villainous The Major in The Long Walk. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter about his resurgence, Hamill offered a number of insights regarding his time in Star Wars, including why he returned as Luke in The Mandalorian and some of his reservations about the sequel trilogy.
In Chapter 16: The Rescue of The Mandalorian, Star Wars fans were in awe as Luke Skywalker made his triumphant return. More than ever before, Hamill went into exactly why he wanted to return as Luke in the hit Disney+ series, seeing it as a chance to complete Luke’s trilogy.
“The reason I did Mandalorian was that Luke had a beginning and an end. There was no middle. It was like making a trilogy about James Bond as a young boy who first became aware of the Secret Service and wanted to be a part of it. Part two was him training to be an agent. Part three is earning his license to kill — The End. No From Russia With Love, Dr. No or Goldfinger. You never got to see Luke as a Master Jedi at the peak of his powers. He was the most idealistic character in that series. He was someone who would take adversity and double down and come back and counter his setbacks. We didn’t see any of that. So when I got the chance, I thought, “Geez, this is wonderful.” I think Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, boy, do they get Star Wars. They get it. They’re speaking the same language that George did in a way that I questioned in the sequels.”
While Hamill seemed assured about his decision to reprise his career-defining role in The Mandalorian, as the end of the above quote hints at, he had more hesitation about coming back for the sequel trilogy. Check out what he said below.
“I had real reservations about coming back. I thought it would be a mistake. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice — they should really focus on a new generation of characters. And I thought, “Well, Harrison [Ford] is not going to do it anyway.” You could see his irritation with constantly having to talk about Han Solo. Once I saw in the press that he had accepted, I felt like I had been drafted — because if I’m the only one [of the original trio, along with the late Carrie Fisher] who says no, I’ll be the most hated man in nerd-dom.”
Now five years after the sequel trilogy concluded, Star Wars fans continue to debate the merits and pitfalls of Episodes VII-IX. Regardless of where one stands on the divisive films, it seems to be a universally held opinion that Hamill’s performance as Luke in The Last Jedi was nothing short of spectacular.