Mark Hamill had no clue that Star Wars will go on to become such a pop culture icon when he had initially lined up to play Luke Starkiller. In fact, he had not considered the possibility of playing the lead character.
He recently spoke to StarWars.com and stated that his initial idea about the character was that it would just be the part of Han Solo’s sidekick.
“I got that part without having read the entire script. I got a scene,” said Hamill. “First of all, there was a cattle call, where everybody in town that’s the right age goes in, and they look at your size, your height, your looks, your this, your that. And you talk back and forth. They interview you; you don’t really hear them talk about the movie.
“And then you get the scene, you do the scene, and I’m trying to figure out, ‘Wait a second. Is this straightforward? Is it kind of a parody or an ironic sendup?’ I tested with Harrison [Ford] and I couldn’t [make sense of it].
“George [Lucas] just said, ‘Well, look, let’s just do it, and we’ll talk about it later.’ Which is classic George, because you learn later that he says, ‘Let’s just do it,’ and then he never talks about it later,” said Hamill.
The Adventures of Han Solo
Hamill said there was not a clear communication from the makers and he had to figure out most of the things himself. As per the testing, he believed that the character of Han Solo played by Ford was the lead guy in the movie.
“But when I finally got the part, and they said they were sending the script over, I was living by myself in a one-bedroom on the beach in Malibu,” Hamill said. “It was before I was married. And I get the script, and I sit down, and I’ll never forget the chair I was sitting in, facing the ocean.
“I open the title page, and it says, ‘The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as Taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga Number One: The Star Wars.’ And I thought, “Wait a second…” Because when I tested, I figured Harrison’s a leading man. So I thought, ‘I’m playing his sidekick, right?’
That was the moment when Hamill understood that he wasn’t playing a sidekick, but, the lead role in the movie and that got him hooked onto the story by Lucas.
“Reading it, I’m going, ‘Wait a second. Wasn’t I reading for Luke Starkiller? This can’t be right.’ Anyway, I started reading it, and you can imagine. I mean, ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.’ Then you read the crawl, and you’re right in the action. It’s just such an economical example of storytelling.”
Later they renamed the character to Luke Skywalker, and the film’s title was also changed to ‘Star Wars’ before the actual filming started, however, the storyline was the same at all times.
The Wonderful Wizard of Tatooine
Mark Hamill recounted his initial perception of the story being similar to the classic movie that was based on the iconic L. Frank Baum novel.
“Well, you know, an hour later I’m just floating above that chair thinking, ‘My gosh!’ One of my favorite films of all time is The Wizard of Oz and that sort of reminded me of it,” Hamill said. “You know, if Dorothy were a boy instead of a girl getting swept off his boring desert planet, or Kansas, into a fantastical world where there’s a phantasmagorical collection of creatures and robots and villains and heroes. I was just astonished.”
The script’s details made Hamill wonder about how the movie’s visuals would be shot.
“I thought, ‘How are they going to do this? The floating cars and the light swords…’ It took me a while to get all the terminology. People freak out — They’relightsabers! Well, I know that now.”
The film took quite a bit of time for George Lucas to create what he envisaged, however, the film was a raging success. Now after four decades, Mark Hamill will reprise the role that gave him an iconic stature.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres in theaters on December 15.
