Mark Hamill Thought ‘Star Wars’ Was a Flash Gordon Spoof at First: “I thought, ‘Who talks like this?’”
Mark Hamill may be forever remembered as Luke Skywalker, but when he first came across Star Wars, he didn’t think he was reading the script of a groundbreaking space saga. Instead, he thought it was some kind of comedy.
While speaking on the UK talk show This Morning, Hamill revealed that when he was given pages to read for his screen test, he couldn’t quite believe the dialogue. “The thing is I didn’t get the whole script, for the screen test it was only eight pages. I thought, ‘Who talks like this?’ So I spoke to Harrison [Ford] and you know what he said? ‘Hey kid, let’s just get it done.’ He was no help at all,” Hamill joked.
Hamill admitted he even confronted director George Lucas about what he thought was a parody. “I went to George. I said, ‘George this is sort of like a send up of Flash Gordon.’ He went, ‘Let’s just do it and talk about it later.’ Translation: let’s just do it and never talk about it later.”
At the time, Hamill didn’t even realize he was the lead. He figured Harrison Ford, who looked every bit the classic leading man, was the star of the film. “When I was filming, Harrison, to me, was a leading man, I just assumed he was the lead character and I was his annoying sidekick. Then I get the movie, and Harrison must be Luke. Then I started reading it and I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s from my point of view,’ which is really unusual to tell it through a teenager’s point of view.”
Hamill also remembered how Luke Skywalker wasn’t always named Skywalker. In the beginning, he was called Luke Starkiller, and Hamill even filmed a scene with the name. “We shot the scene, ‘I’m Luke Starkiller I’m here to rescue you.’ I came back the next week and said, ‘Why are we doing that scene again?’ They said, ‘Oh, they’ve changed your name.’ I said, ‘To what?’ They said, ‘To Skywalker.’”
But he wasn’t thrilled. “Let’s face it Luke could use a little macho-ing up. It sounded like Luke Flyswatter, I hated it,” he said.
Even with those complaints, Hamill had fun stepping into the role. He explained that he played Luke as a young, immature character at first so that there would be room for him to grow throughout the trilogy. “I intentionally played him as juvenile as I could so I could have some growth,” he shared.
Looking back, Hamill described the filming process as a kind of childhood dream come true. “We had fun, that’s for sure. It was really odd, because you were being paid for being in your backyard when you were 10 years old and pretending that you were Zorro or whoever. It was all a blast.”
What Hamill once thought was a silly space parody went on to define his career and shape pop culture forever. For him, it all started with a script that didn’t make much sense, a leading man he thought was in charge, and a name he wasn’t sure about. The rest is movie history.
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