Mark Hamill has bull’s-eyed womp rats in his T-16 back home on Tatooine as Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars.”
He has clashed with the Caped Crusader in Gotham City as the voice of the Joker in numerous animated “Batman” adventures.
But when it comes to love of a location, it’s New York City.
“It’s a funny city. It’s an angry city. It’s a passionate city. Greatest food. Greatest theater,” says the actor, who is returning to the role of Luke as a grayed, weathered hermit in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” “I was in love with New York; everything about it. You know, hot dogs from the pushcart and the pizza through the window and Chock Full o’Nuts.
“Do they even still have Chock Full o’Nuts?” (They do, actually, with two locations in Midwood.)
The 66-year-old actor is seated in a booth at Cafe Carlyle on the Upper West Side on a recent afternoon with his small dog sitting next to him. He’s excited and animated reminiscing about his days in New York City, where he lived for 19 years. He’d still be here, he says, if he could have sublet his place.
“I love this city. There’s no other city like it in the world,” Hamill says. “My dad was in the Navy. Went to nine schools in 12 years. Move, move, move, move, move. And when we got close enough — when my dad was stationed in Washington, D.C. — he took me on a business trip to New York.”
It was then that the young Hamill got a taste for the New York stage, taking in shows — by himself, he boasts — including “The Mad Show,” “The Odd Couple” and Neil Simon’s “Sweet Charity,” which was Hamill’s first musical.
He already was doing theater in school, and when he got to see the live shows here, it flipped a switch for him.
“It was the first time I looked and said, ‘This is real. I don’t know how they make movies or even where they make movies or TV,’ ” he explains. “But with theater you could actually see the actors.”
Hamill, of course, would play the role of Luke in the original “Star Wars: A New Hope,” which came out in 1977, and the sequels “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1980 and “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. But between those films, Hamill was in New York City treading the boards.
He made his Broadway debut in “The Elephant Man” in 1979, taking over the role of John Merrick. He then had a run in “Amadeus” in 1983 (as the titular genius composer), “Harrigan ’N Hart” in 1985 (which landed him a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Musical), “The Nerd” in 1987 and years later, “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” in 2003.
While he hasn’t come back to the New York stage in nearly 15 years, he has returned to his iconic role of Luke, first in a brief mountain top appearance in the last minutes of 2015’s “The Force Awakens” and now with a much larger part in “The Last Jedi.”
It’s a role he knows intimately, though there was a challenge because George Lucas, the creator of it all, is out of the picture after selling the franchise to Disney in 2012.
“Well, it was very difficult for me because now other people are running the show,” Hamill says. “George was my Obi-Wan. So if I wanted to know about the whole history of ‘Star Wars’ — why would this happen? And he’d tell me. You know, because it was all his.”
Now there’s a new crew in charge, including producers Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams, who directed “The Force Awakens,” and Rian Johnson, the writer-director of “The Last Jedi.”
“Now you have a generation that’s grown up to be the writers and directors themselves and sometimes, I mean, it’s hard not to feel like some semblance of ownership after all these years,” Hamill says. “Like, Luke wouldn’t say that or Luke wouldn’t do that. But ultimately that’s not my job.”
As the consummate professional, Hamill expressed his issues to Johnson, then got to work.
“So even though I disagreed with a lot of what was on the page, I had to tell Rian that, get it off my chest and then once that was said, do my best to realize his vision,” he says.
One of the biggest sticking points — and one that doesn’t spoil much — was a line that Luke says, which is in the trailer. Skywalker says, “I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end.”
“Now this is inconceivable to me because I know what I think a Jedi is,” Hamill says. “And a Jedi is not cynical. A Jedi doesn’t give up. A Jedi perseveres even if he makes a terrible mistake. Rian said, ‘Well, you thought that Kylo [Ren] was the chosen one and you feel responsible for possibly creating the new Darth Vader.’
“Yeah, all true,” he continues, “but that still doesn’t explain why I’ve become this hermit that is so incognizant of the turmoil in the galaxy. It doesn’t compute. But, hey, at the end of the day it’s impossible not to have fun making ‘Star Wars’ movies even if your story is sober and moody and dark.”
Hamill says there is a lot to enjoy in the film, with “so much humor” and “so much suspense … all these great things that make a great movie.”
Of course, he couldn’t help but lament that he is now the “Star Wars” elder. At 66, he’s a few years older than Sir Alec Guinness was when he played Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi in “A New Hope.” It’s left him feeling nostalgic, he says.
“I used to be the cocky pilot. Now you’ve got Oscar Isaac, who I adore as an actor. He’s doing that.” Hamill says. “And we used to sneak around the Death Star. Now you got Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega behind enemy lines. I used to be the nobody from a desert planet.
“You see all your parts being carved up and divvied up to others — it’s like watching a bunch of kids rifle through your toy box and playing with your favorites toys,” he continues. “Hey, that’s mine!”
The one thing that is indeed his, that they can’t take away, is the fact that he is Luke Skywalker, the poor farm boy from a dusty planet who goes on to defeat the Empire with his ragtag partners. Getting back into the character, for him, was made easy with costume and makeup.
He adds a quick aside about the hair they wanted him to wear.
“They put on a piece for me, to make my hair really, really long,” he says. “I didn’t want to wear a wig. I mean, by the way, in [“Force Awakens”] the way J.J. [Abrams] describes me, ‘He turns. He removes his hood with flowing white hair and beard. It is Luke Skywalker.’ I said, ‘Wait a second, this is chronologically following ‘Return of the Jedi.’ I’m only like 52. Don’t rush me man.’”
Back on point, he explains that putting on the costume helps with the transformation.
“Once you get into the gear and you look into the mirror in your trailer, before you go on set, it’s not you anymore,” he says. “You’ve been transformed physically into this character now. It’s your job to sort of give him that inner motor that makes him work.”
