Mark Hamill is one of the good celebrities. He’s avoided scandal and has always put his money where his mouth is. He’s also been a very outspoken advocate for Democrats and doesn’t GAF when it comes to alienating the snowflake Star Wars fanboys. Oh, and Mark was one of the few Hollywood stars to have Joe Biden’s back in his re-election campaign, calling him Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi last May.
Mark is promoting two Stephen King adaptations that he’s staring in, The Life of Chuck and The Long Walk. As such, he just sat down for a long profile with The Sunday Times, where he chatted about his upbringing, leaning into his very distinctive type of fame, and, of course, his view on politics. It’s a really good interview and if you’re a Hamill fan, I recommend you check out the full piece. Here are some highlights.
Carrie Fisher told him to get over himself: When he tried to audition for the title role in the film adaptation of Amadeus, having played the part successfully on stage, its director, Milos Forman, told him bluntly: “Oh no no, the Luke Skywalker is not to be being the Mozart.” … Like an ageing rock star still forced to play the hits from his debut album, Hamill remains trapped in a pop cultural moment of almost half a century ago. For a while in the 1990s he tried to downplay Star Wars in his Broadway credits — after a long list of theatre credits, his biography concluded with, “He’s also known for a series of popular space movies.” It took Carrie Fisher, lifelong friend and burster of bubbles, to put him straight — “Get over yourself,” he recently revealed she had told him. “You’re Luke Skywalker. I’m Princess Leia. Embrace it.”
He’s not in it for the awards: Instead, Hamill claims, he is satisfied with life as “a working stiff … As a kid I’d see these character actors on The Twilight Zone and The Dick Van Dyke Show and I filed that away. ‘I love that guy. He’s always good. He shows up all the time in all these different things. What’s his name?’ It’s me!”
The Long Walk’s unexpected timeliness: What was written as an allegory for Vietnam now becomes an allegory for modern America, something that Hamill, a lifelong and ardent Democrat, has long despaired of. “A few weeks ago ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents were pulling people out of their cars,” he says, pointing down the hill to LA, which has become a frontline city in President Trump’s clampdown on undocumented immigrants. “They wore masks and had no identification to show they were law enforcement. They were just brutalising people, kneeling on their necks. When I made the movie I wasn’t thinking in terms of it being timely but it’s proven to be just that.”
On the current US political landscape: “The bullying, the incompetence, the people in place… The only way I can deal with it without going crazy and wanting to open my veins in a warm tub is to look at it like a thick, sprawling political novel. It’s entertaining in a way because this could actually be the end. Our status in the world has been crippled and that will reverberate for decades. Making Canada a 51st state? Do you know how offensive that is? And then taking over Greenland and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. The distractions are hilarious.”
He still believes in the light side of the force: “I still believe there are more honest, decent people than there are the Maga crowd. If I didn’t, I’d move back to England.”
Why he’s not leaving the country: He could do an Ellen DeGeneres, I suggest, and try the Cotswolds. He nods and says that when Trump was re-elected, he gave his wife a choice: London or Ireland. “She’s very clever,” he says. “She didn’t respond right away but a week later she said, ‘I’m surprised you would allow him to force you out of your own country.’ That son of a bitch, I thought. I’m not leaving.”
”I still believe there are more honest, decent people than there are MAGA.” I had to re-read this quote several times before I could decide whether or not I agreed with it. I want to agree with it. I was pretty devastated after the election and disgusted by the fact that 77+ million people voted for Orange Voldemort. I still am. It wasn’t until the “Hands Off” and “No Kings” protests that I was reminded that there are still so many decent people among us. I live near a Tesla dealership, and there are *still* people who protest outside of it every Friday afternoon. The recent headlines about red states gerrymandering in order to win congressional elections are infuriating, but serve as a reminder that Republicans can’t win without cheating. Do all of these things make our current state of affairs easier to swallow? Hell no. But, it does remind me that there are so many decent people out there who care. It’s just difficult when the worst voices are the loudest ones.
Anyway, I am not surprised that Carrie Fisher was the person to take Mark aside and tell him to get over himself and embrace his place in the entertainment zeitgeist. Man, I miss her so much. I know she’d be on the front lines protesting what the current admin is doing, too. My head-canon has decided that Carrie, Mark, and Harrison Ford would have teamed up to do a pro-Kamala Harris ad for the last election. Anyway, over the years, I have really come to appreciate how smart and decent Mark comes across in interviews and over social media. They say never meet your heroes, but Mark is absolutely one that I’d love to meet one day.
Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Judy Eddy/Wenn/Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram