The three "Star Wars" movies (including "The Empire Strikes Back" 1980 and "Return of the Jedi" 1983) solidified Hamill in the public's mind as Luke Skywalker, and none of the features he did during the six years spanning the trilogy did anything to dispel his appealing boy-next-door image. The best one was Sam Fuller's richly evoked war drama "The Big Red One" (1980), in which he played one of four callow recruits in the charge of veteran sergeant Lee Marvin. Lighter fare to which he lent his clean-cut good looks included the teen comedy "Corvette Summer" (1978) and Lindsay Anderson's witty, unsparing expose of British manners, "Britannia Hospital" (1982). Hamill spent most of the 1980s on stage, making his Broadway debut as John Merrick in "The Elephant Man" in 1981. He would return to the Great White Way several times, first as Mozart in "Amadeus" (in which he also toured) and later in the short-lived biographical musical "Harrigan 'n' Hart" and the comedy "The Nerd". Hamill ended his self-imposed exile from the movies with a performance as a futuristic bounty hunter in "Slipstream" (1989).
"Star Wars" was both a blessing and a curse for the actor, but the points with which Lucas rewarded him (and his fellow cast members) surely went a long way toward assuaging any frustration he may feel at being typecast in sci-fi and action adventures, thrillers and fantasies. Though Hamill's first credit as a voice actor came in Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards" (1977), the 90s have seen him blossom as the talent behind many animated characters, particularly the gleefully unhinged Joker of both Fox's animated TV series "The Adventures of Batman and Robin" (1992) and its spin-off feature "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" (1993). He has played live-action, scenery-chewing villains like The Trickster in two episodes of "The Flash" (CBS) and Mike Hawkins, the nemesis of the Swedish super-agent "Hamilton" (1998). Branching out into interactive videos, Hamill drew from Luke Skywalker to create the more grown-up figure of Christopher Blair, the leading character of several, best-selling "Wing Commander" CD-ROMs in the mid-90s. He also portrayed the time-traveling friend of Richard Grieco in the Showtime movie "When Time Expires" (1997) and co-produced and starred in the straight-to-video release "Watchers Reborn" (1998).