Mark Hamill Nearly Retired After The Star Wars Sequels But This “Scary” Role Stopped Him

With all the debates over The Last Jedi, and flat-out hate for The Rise of Skywalker, it’s easy to imagine Mark Hamill feeling like enough was enough. He never truly stopped doing voice acting — by providing the pipes of Skeletor for Netflix, he tied with Jared Leto as the only actor to play both the Masters of the Universe villain and the Joker — but in a new interview with Esquire, he reveals that he considered quietly slipping away from acting once his Star Wars trilogy deal was done. Then fate, and a high-profile fan, intervened. Mike Flanagan made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

That offer was for Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher, which ironically, had to get rid of another Skeletor actor, Frank Langella, after he was let go for unacceptable on-set conduct. Hamill didn’t replace him — Bruce Greenwood did — but instead came aboard as Arthur Gordon Pym, the family attorney, and the title character of Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

Mike Flanagan May Have Saved Mark Hamill’s Live-Action Career

Flanagan, creator of The Fall of the House of Usher miniseries, is also known for adapting the works of Stephen King to the screen, and enjoyed Hamill’s work enough to bring him aboard The Life of Chuck. in which he plays the grandfather with secrets whose third-act appearance is key to unlocking the entire movie. Hamill befriended King at the Toronto Film Festival screening…and that was before the author had seen him as the Major in Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk, an adaptation of the first novel King ever wrote. Continuing the King and Flanagan connections, Hamill appeared in a cameo for the streaming Carrie series/ The historical irony there is that Hamill was actually up for the William Katt role in Brian De Palma’s original 1976 Carrie movie.

Hamill appears to have found a new career niche as the sort of actor who’d be in movies the Joker likes to watch; he’ll be in season three of Twisted Metal as Pope Charlie Kane, father of the psychotic clown Sweet Tooth, played by Samoa Joe (body) and Will Arnett (voice).The idea that he would ever have retired is probably just a fleeting thought; Imdb currently has him at 385 credits and counting, though that includes animation voice-over parts. In addition to such roles on high-profile projects like Invincible, The Wild Robot, and the lead in the upcoming Darkwing Duck reboot, Hamill has been on What We Do in the Shadows, and will appear in the upcoming TV movie Relatively Super, about superheroes’ extended families.

With a new Star Wars trilogy seemingly on the horizon, there’s also always a chance he’ll return to his most famous role yet. If Yoda’s Force ghost can appear in the sequel trilogy, certainly Luke’s can in the next one. And there’s a lot of material still to cover between trilogies, probably in animation; Hamill always seems game to revoice Luke Skywalker, be it in LEGO, or deepfakes, or something even better. For now, though, when it comes to live-action, it appears his late-stage career phase is one of horror, and entwined with the King thereof. Not a bad way for Luke to finally fall to the dark side.

Do you like seeing Mark Hamill in horror? Shriek your thoughts in comments.