Even after all this time, Mark Hamill’s still got the kids enraptured.
Two years ago, Benjamin Pajak was 12 when he was going to film his scenes with Hamill for the new Stephen King movie adaptation “The Life of Chuck” (in theaters now). Like youngsters almost 50 years ago, Pajak grew up loving Hamill in “Star Wars” and “I was nervous to meet the guy,” he says. “Somehow that got out and they scheduled me a lunch with Mark and I was freaking out.”
Hamill is a little amazed himself that this continues to happen. “I certainly never expected to have the longevity,” says the erstwhile Luke Skywalker. “Really young kids have no concept of time. They think we made those movies two months ago.”
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After hanging up Luke’s robe and lightsaber following 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and a couple of de-aged cameos in “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett,” Hamill has had an interesting bunch of character actor gigs. He played ruthless fixer Arthur Gordon Pym in Mike Flanagan’s Netflix horror drama “The Fall of the House of Usher” and crusty yet kind grandpa Albie Krantz in Flanagan’s “Life of Chuck.” Next, he stars as a sadistic military man known as the Major in another King adaptation, “The Long Walk” (in theaters Sept. 12).
Pajak says Albie is “the role (Mark) was meant to do”: “Life of Chuck” tells the story of ordinary accountant Chuck Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) in reverse chronological order, and Albie is a wise father figure for young Chuck (Pajak and Cody Flanagan) after the death of his parents. Hamill says there’s “an overlay of grief and tragedy” in Albie, who’s also an accountant, having lost his son, pregnant daughter-in-law and a grandchild he’d never meet. Yet Albie shows he’s still got a spicy side when Chuck dares to call math boring.
“It touches a nerve in him and he is just rhapsodized,” says Hamill, who has a moving speech that was “a bugger to memorize” and spent every day for a few weeks working on it. “He lays his heart and soul out but even I thought how amusing it is that of all the things that would turn someone on to math, it’s ‘when you’re looking at the stars, you’re looking at the greatest equation in the universe.’ That’s who he is.”
Albie is a definite contrast from Arthur Pym, one of the most heinous men Hamill’s ever played in his career. “I routinely play really odd characters in voiceover. I rarely get those kind of parts on camera,” he says. “I was thrilled. Some people would be insulted that they came to mind when you’re meant to play a soulless, sociopathic, evil person. But I loved it.”
Hamill also dug his scenery-chewing role in “The Long Walk.” Francis Lawrence’s dystopian thriller centers on young men competing in a grueling annual walking contest who trudge along a highway: If anybody’s pace falls under 3 mph, they’re executed until only one survivor is left. Cooper Hoffman, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer and David Jonsson are among the competitors who are “the heart and soul of this movie,” Hamill says. “I do my job, I torment them.”
And during the holiday season, Hamill’s back in the voiceover game playing the villainous Flying Dutchman in “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (in theaters Dec. 19). He appeared on a 2007 episode of the “SpongeBob SquarePants” show, one that was distinguished for being the first time that Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway had worked together since “McHale’s Navy.” “I’m a ‘60s kid and I was really excited about that,” Hamill says.
Anytime Hamill waxes nostalgic in conversation, “Star Wars” inevitably comes up. He recalls reading George Lucas’ script and wishing he could play Darth Vader or Han Solo, and opines about his iconic costars, being “wide-eyed and in awe” of Harrison Ford and wowed by wisecracking 19-year-old Carrie Fisher, who “had the wisdom of an elderly woman.”
He gets a kick out of people remembering him, too: “I’ll be in an airport and parents will say to their 4- and 5-year-olds, ‘Look who it is, it’s Luke Skywalker!’ And they look up and they’re just horrified. Like, what happened? This guy really let himself go! I say, ‘Just tell him I’m Luke’s grandfather.’”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Life of Chuck’ star Mark Hamill loves his character actor era
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