Actor Mark Hamill is one of the most influential and iconic actors in the history of Hollywood thanks to his work as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars Original trilogy, which included films Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Without a doubt, his performance was one of the main reasons why Star Wars became so popular around the world.
Roughly 32 years later, Hamill once again got the opportunity to play the character in the Sequel trilogy, starting with J. J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). In the film, Hamill had a brief role at the end of the film, setting up for the sequel. Two years later, fans got to see more of Hamill as an older version of Luke Skywalker in Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, however, Hamill wasn’t a huge fan of Johnson’s story, in fact, his character was so poorly written that Hamill had to pretend it was another character.
Mark Hamill was very disappointed over how his character was written in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
In 2017, actor Mark Hamill appeared for an interview with a Spanish-language movie site called SensaCine, and explained that his vision of Luke Skywalker was not aligned with Rian Johnson, who directed 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The actor said,
“I said to Rian, I said ‘Jedis don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore. It’s somebody else’s story, and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.”
Hamill was disappointed to learn that Luke Skywalker had been hiding for so many years. These ideas caused clashes between Johnson and Hamill.
Mark Hamill had a hard time accepting the movie
Further in the interview, Hamill explained that he has a hard time accepting that Luke Skywalker ended up like that in the movie,
“I still haven’t accepted it completely, but it’s only a movie. I hope people like it. I hope they don’t get upset. And I came to really believe that Rian was the exact man that they needed for this job.”
However, a few days later, Hamill regretted stating these words publicly. In a tweet, the actor explained that “creative differences are a common element of any project but usually remain private,” further hailing Johnson’s film as “an all-time GREAT one!” Hamill reprised his role as Skywalker again in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
