The secrecy surrounding Mark Hamill’s role as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is no secret. His being in the film is an established fact, but getting him to speak about the experience in a clear, coherent manner is another matter entirely. Now that the film opens in less than a month, Hamill seems a bit more lax about it all.
His absence from the film’s marketing is palpable, so Skywalker himself dropped a few hints about The Force Awakens in a special cover story for Empire.
Rest assured, Luke will appear in TFA, although it’s a fair bet that he won’t quite be the innocent farm boy we met back in A New Hope. “Obviously you’re seeing him in a very different time in his life,” says Hamill. “There are lots of surprises in this movie. You’re going to love it.”
At one point, Hamill discussed two different instances of feeling alone on the set of an otherwise massive movie — once in Tunisia, and another time in Ireland. Empire suggests this gives credence to (a) the theory that Skywalker spends most of The Force Awakens alone, and (b) the character’s presence in Episode VIII.
“It reminded me of when I was in Tunisia on the salt flats. If you could get into your own mind and shut out the crew and look at the horizon , you really felt like you were in a galaxy far, far away. I had that same wave of emotion happen to me when I was on Skellig Michael in Ireland. I wasn’t anticipating it.”
Audiences won’t know for sure until The Force Awakens hits theaters on Dec. 18. Until then, they’ll just have to satisfy themselves with Hamill’s occasional hints about his iconic character’s role in the new film.
(Via Slash Film)
