Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill (birthname: Mark Richard Hamill) is and forever will be Luke Skywalker, no matter what other movie roles he has taken on. Remarkably, it was his first big-screen role, in George Lucas’ groundbreaking epic, Star Wars (1977), with Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, and James Earl Jones (as the voice of Darth Vader); grossing $776 million globally, the movie is the second-highest grossing North American movie in history, adjusted for inflation.

Hamill revived Luke in the Irvin Kershner-directed The Empire Strikes Back (1980), with Billy Dee Williams joining the existing cast; Hamill completed his early-career adventure with Skywalker in Return of the Jedi (1983), directed by Richard Marquand. Combined, the Skywalk trilogy (or Star Wars Episodes 4-6) has earned a combined $1.8 billion globally, one of the most successful contained series in film history.

Hamill’s first non-Skywalker role was co-star, with Annie Potts, in the Matthew Robbins-directed adventure comedy, Corvette Summer (1978). Hamill co-starred with Lee Marvin, Robert Carradine, and Stephane Audran in Sam Fuller’s fine WW2 drama, The Big Red One (1980), premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.

Hamill joined the cast of Kristy McNichol and Dennis Quaid for the Southern-tinged musical, The Nights the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981), directed by Robert F. Maxwell. In an unexpected move, Mark Hamill was cast by legendary British filmmaker Lindsay Anderson in his piercing black comedy, Britannia Hospital (1982), starring Malcolm McDowell, Leonard Rossiter, Joan Plowright, Alan Bates, Richard Griffiths, and Graham Crowden.

Rejoining Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz, Hamill starred in the little-seen sci-fi movie, Slipstream (1989), with Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley, and F. Murray Abraham, though despite its pedigree it was oddly never released theatrically in the U.S. More of a cult item was Hamill’s next movie, the slasher thriller Midnight Ride (1990), with Michael Dudikoff and Robert Mitchum. Mark Hamill starred in another oddity, The Guyver (1991), a U.S.-Japan co-production (made by New Line Cinema and Shochiku Films) in the Japanese tokusatsu superhero genre, with Vivian Wu and Jimmie Walker; however, Hamill did not join the movie’s 1994 sequel, subtitled Dark Hero.

One of Hamill’s first supporting roles was in John Carpenter’s effective though often dismissed horror movie, Village of the Damned (1995), the last movie starring Christopher Reeve, with Kirstie Alley and Michael Paré. After several movies that went director-to-video, Hamill played major support in the Christian-themed drama, Walking Across Egypt (1999), starring Ellen Burstyn, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Edward Herrmann, Dana Ivey, Harve Presnell, Gwen Verdon, Gail O’Grady, and Judge Reinhold.

In a goofy detour, Hamill was cast (as himself, as the character of Cocknocker, and the voice of Scooby-Doo) by writer-director Kevin Smith for his Star Wars-themed Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), with Jason Mewes, Smith, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Shannon Elizabeth, Eliza Dushku, Ali Larter, Will Ferrell, Matt Damon, Carrie Fisher, George Carlin, and Chris Rock.

Hamill’s only movie as star/director/writer/producer was a direct-to-video movie, Comic Book: The Movie (2004), and it was a long stretch until Hamill’s next theatrical venture in the cast of the British-made horror movie, Airborne (2012), followed by the low-budget crime movie, Sushi Girl (2012), released by Magnolia Pictures and co-starring Tony Todd, James Duval, and Sonny Chiba.

Hamill co-starred with Robert Baker in the Roger Corman-produced Virtually Heroes, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013 but wasn’t theatrically released until 2022. The first hit movie in which Mark Hamill had a role in several years was writer/director/producer Matthew Vaughn’s spy comedy, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), starring Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Caine, and Mark Strong, and grossing a robust $414.4 million for 20^th Century Fox.

This led to Hamill’s much-discussed return to the Star Wars universe with a cameo appearance in J.J. Abrams’ mega-hit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), the seventh episode in the series and reuniting the original cast of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, with Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, and Max von Sydow, and earning a stratospheric $2.07 billion worldwide.

Hamill’s appearance received such praise that he was cast in more significant appearances as Luke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), the eighth and ninth episodes in the Star Wars saga, the former written and directed by Rian Johnson, the latter by co-written and directed J.J. Abrams, both reuniting the cast of the earlier The Force Awakens, both earning a combined $2.4 billion worldwide.

Another voice role for Hamill was Chucky in the reboot of Child’s Play (2019), directed by Lars Klevberg and starring Tim Matheson and Aubrey Plaza. Hamill’s revived career led to a role in the Bert Kreischer-starring comedy, The Machine (2023), directed by Peter Atencio and released to disappointing box office results ($10.5 million on a $20 million budget) by Sony Pictures. Mark Hammill was cast opposite Tom Hiddleston in writer-director Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Life of Chuck (date to be announced).