Mark Hamill was initially hesitant to return to the Star Wars franchise because he didn’t want to mess with his legacy as Luke Skywalker.
The actor reprised his role for an eye-popping finale in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but now reveals he only signed on after hearing his old castmate Harrison Ford was returning.
“I was just really scared,” he tells the New York Times. “I thought, ‘Why mess with it (Star Wars)?’ The idea of catching lightning in a bottle twice was ridiculously remote.”
“(But) can you imagine if I was the only one to say no?” he adds. “I’d be the most hated man in nerd-dom.”
Mark’s role was supposed to be more substantial but ended up being a cameo in the film because director J.J. Abrams realized he would not be able to tell the story he wanted to tell in the film.
“The idea of it was so enormous,” the director tells the publication. “It became clear that there was no way that that movie could also include those chapters. That had to be the next movie.”
“I let him know before he read the script that his role was minimal,” he adds. “I don’t think he knew just how minimal until he read it. (He was) not particularly happy with how little he was in it.”
However, he will be featured heavily in upcoming film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
“I told him, everyone is going to be leaning forward for your first words in this,” director Rian Johnson says. “Obviously, Mark came into this one with higher expectations for what we do with the character.”
