Mark Hamill has stated many times that coming back to the Star Wars universe was a surreal moment, and a decision that he didn’t know if he wanted to do. He recently spoke about what the role means to him, and why he hesitated to come back to the franchise.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Mark Hamill talked the hesitations he had about returning to the role of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. More importantly Hamill was reluctant because director Rian Johnson wasn’t clear with his intentions for Luke:
A thing that felt maybe wrong about coming back was the fact that the original trilogy had a beginning, a middle and an end. But there’s two ways of looking at that. On the one hand, it had closure. But if you look at it another way, it’s the story of how Luke went from becoming a farm boy to a Jedi and then the story ends. It would be like telling the story of how James Bond got his license to kill and became 007, and the story ends.
[Luke being a different person in the new trilogy] is what really fascinated me. Between “Return of the Jedi” and “Force Awakens,” there’s just decades of history that’s unknown. So I was wondering how they’re going to handle all this. Now, obviously, with “Force Awakens,” J.J. (Abrams) had a full plate. It was inevitable that they would push me down the line. I was sorry I wasn’t able to work with any of the original actors again. But it’s not about us anymore. In this new one, I was saying to Rian Johnson: I need to know my backstory. It was kind of unclear. You read where he is now and what he’s doing now and sort of have to fill in the blanks for yourself. So I did do a backstory myself. It’s not about Luke anymore, so it’s not really important. But I had to make sense of it for myself. What Rian came up with, I was stunned.
Hearing Hamill’s reaction to Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi is comforting, and shows you how amazing this film will be. There are multiple set comments that state that Johnson has made a film that is both unique and original, yet still will satisfy the biggest fans of Star Wars. You can check out a new image released featuring Luke Skywalker below:
