Mark Hamill‘s Luke Skywalker, the main protagonist of the original Star Wars trilogy, almost didn’t return for the sequel trilogy. In a recent interview, the veteran actor opened up about reprising his iconic Star Wars role in 2015’s The Force Awakens, noting that he initially considered the move to be a mistake.
Mark Hamill was uncertain about returning as Luke Skywalker at first
While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about his latest feature, The Long Walk, Mark Hamill revealed that he was extremely hesitant about returning to the Star Wars franchise for the sequel trilogy.
“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,” Hamill explained.
However, he ultimately decided to join the project after Harrison Ford, who plays the charismatic Han Solo in the franchise, had agreed to come back. “I thought, ‘Well, Harrison 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 who says no, I’ll be the most hated man in nerd-dom,” Hamill remarked.
Despite his reservations about starring in The Force Awakens, Hamill was much more certain about returning as Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian. In the same discussion, Hamill said that he was enthusiastic about doing The Mandalorian as it helped fill the gap in his character’s story. “The reason I did Mandalorian was that Luke had a beginning and an end. There was no middle,” he said. “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,” Hamill added.
Originally reported by Apoorv Rastogi on SuperHeroHype.
