Mark Hamill has played two of the most iconic characters in pop culture history: Luke Skywalker and The Joker.
While Luke will always be the role most associated with him, his performance as the Clown Prince of Crime in Batman: The Animated Series and later projects like Batman: The Killing Joke and the Arkham video games is legendary among fans.
Now, Hamill has opened up about his time as both characters, whether he’d ever return as Gotham’s greatest villain, and why he decided to revisit Luke in The Mandalorian.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter while promoting The Long Walk, Hamill reflected on the unexpected moment he landed the Joker role.
“It was right after they announced that Michael Keaton was cast as Batman, and the fan community freaked out, ‘Oh, he’s Mr. Mom. He’s a comic actor.
“So even though I really wanted the part, I thought, ‘If they freaked out about Mr. Mom being Batman, how are they going to feel about Luke Skywalker being the Joker? There’s no way I’m going to get this!'”
Hamill continued:
“And because I believed that, I was completely calm and relaxed. I just let it rip. I drove out of the parking lot really cocky: ‘Top that, try to find a better Joker than that.’
“People didn’t even believe it was me. They thought it was treated or sped up or who knows what. But it was a fundamental reason I got so many interesting roles in voiceover.”
For decades, Hamill brought chaos to Gotham alongside Kevin Conroy’s Batman. When Conroy passed away in 2022, Hamill announced he was done playing the Joker. He hasn’t returned since, and it doesn’t sound like he has any plans to.
“When they’d asked [about a new project], ‘Do want you to do the Joker?’ My only question was, ‘Is Kevin doing Batman?’ If he’s in, I don’t even have to read it. I don’t know whether they’ve tried to get me back, but my agent would know. But not to my knowledge.”
That seems to close the door on his Joker for now. But when it comes to Luke Skywalker, Hamill did come back for one last adventure in The Mandalorian.
Hamill admitted he had “real reservations” about returning in The Last Jedi, but it was the willingness of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher to reprise their roles that convinced him.
He also knew skipping a cameo in The Force Awakens would have made him, in his words, “the most hated man in nerd-dom.”
While the sequel trilogy had a divisive reception, Hamill found something special in returning for The Mandalorian.
“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.”
He added:
“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.”
So while Hamill may not be slipping back into the Joker’s maniacal laugh, he did get one more chance to play Luke one more time and it sounds like for him, that was more than enough.
