Mark Hamill Once Thought ‘Star Wars’ Script Was Just a Parody
Mark Hamill may be known worldwide as Luke Skywalker, but when he first read the script for “Star Wars,” he didn’t think he was about to star in one of the most famous movies ever made. Instead, he thought the whole thing was a joke.
During an appearance on the UK talk show “This Morning,” Hamill explained that when he first got his hands on the script, he assumed director George Lucas was working on a spoof of old sci-fi adventures like Flash Gordon.
“The thing is I didn’t get the whole script, for the screen test it was only eight pages. I thought, ‘Who talks like this?’ So I spoke to Harrison [Ford] and you know what he said? ‘Hey kid, let’s just get it done.’ He was no help at all,” Hamill said with a laugh.
Hamill shared that he even went directly to Lucas about it. “I went to George. I said, ‘George this is sort of like a send up of Flash Gordon.’ He went, ‘Let’s just do it and talk about it later.’ Translation: let’s just do it and never talk about it later.”
At the time, Hamill didn’t even realize Luke Skywalker was the central character. He thought Harrison Ford, who played Han Solo, was going to be the real star of the film. “When I was filming, Harrison, to me, was a leading man, I just assumed he was the lead character and I was his annoying sidekick. Then I get the movie, and Harrison must be Luke. Then I started reading it and I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s from my point of view,’ which is really unusual to tell it through a teenager’s point of view.”
Hamill also revealed that Luke’s name wasn’t always Skywalker. Originally, he was Luke Starkiller, and Hamill even filmed a rescue scene using that name. “We shot the scene, ‘I’m Luke Starkiller I’m here to rescue you.’ I came back the next week and said, ‘Why are we doing that scene again?’ They said, ‘Oh, they’ve changed your name.’ I said, ‘To what?’ They said, ‘To Skywalker.’”
At the time, he wasn’t happy about it. “Let’s face it Luke could use a little macho-ing up. It sounded like Luke Flyswatter, I hated it,” he admitted.
Even with his doubts, Hamill threw himself into the role, playing Luke as a wide-eyed teenager who still had a lot to learn. “I intentionally played him as juvenile as I could so I could have some growth,” he explained.
Despite his early worries about the script, the name, and the dialogue, Hamill remembered filming Star Wars as one of the most fun times of his life. “We had fun, that’s for sure. It was really odd, because you were being paid for being in your backyard when you were 10 years old and pretending that you were Zorro or whoever. It was all a blast.”
Looking back now, what started out as something Hamill thought was a parody ended up changing his life forever. Luke Skywalker made him an icon, but at first, even he couldn’t see the galaxy far, far away for what it was going to become.
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