After the explosive success of Star Wars, Mark Hamill struggled with one of the worst cases of typecasting in Hollywood history. The actor struggled to find roles at all, and especially roles that were different from Luke Skywalker, as he has explained several times over the years. It’s one of the reasons he gravitated towards other mediums such as voice-acting for animation, or stage acting on Broadway. In a new interview with NPR this week, Hamill recalled how his co-star Carrie Fisher helped him gain some perspective on his fame and come to peace with it. She convinced him not to try and hide from the franchise’s global legacy.
Hamill had a thriving career on Broadway in the 1980s, with starring roles in productions of The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Harrigan ‘N Hart, Room Service, and The Nerd. He told NPR that during that time, he intentionally tried to downplay his association with Star Wars. “In the Playbill, in my bio, I listed all my theater credits, and at the end said, ‘He’s also known for a series of popular space movies,’” Hamill recalled.
He finally ditched this tongue-in-cheek bio when Fisher came to see him perform, and she got a look at one of the playbills. “She goes, ‘What’s the deal? …Get over yourself. You’re Luke Skywalker, I’m Princess Leia. Embrace it.’ And I kind of saw what she meant.”
[RELATED: No One Told Mark Hamill Star Wars 10 Was Happening]
Hamill said that he was trying to highlight his theater credits and his versatility, but Fisher’s “perspective” helped him realize that he couldn’t simply tell that to an audience. Instead, he began thinking, “what territory do I occupy that no one else does?” That mindset also helped him gracefully return for the sequel trilogy decades later.
Hamill has told some harrowing tales of the rejection he faced from casting directors in the 1980s and 90s. He was so recognizable and closely associated with Luke Skywalker that studio executives generally feared he would be a distraction in another role. He was even passed over for a film adaptation of a role he had already played on Broadway. However, as the years went on he found a diverse array of work that took his career in some interesting directions. These days, his role as The Joker in many animated Batman productions is arguably just as beloved as his work on Star Wars.
Right now, Hamill is promoting The Life of Chuck, a new Stephen King adaptation where he plays a surly grandfather. The movie was written and directed by Mike Flanagan, and it hits theaters in the U.S. on Friday, June 6th.
The post Mark Hamill Shares How Carrie Fisher Got Him to Embrace Star Wars (& It Was for the Best) appeared first on ComicBook.com.
