It’s been 42 years since Mark Hamill first played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, so it should come as little surprise he’s ready to say goodbye to the character when The Rise of Skywalker is released later the year.
Fans of the films knew that when Luke died in The Last Jedi, it wouldn’t be the last time they saw the character. Hamill has confirmed that Skywalker returns in the new film as a ghost, just like Obi-Wan Kenobi did.
In an interview with AP Entertainment, Mark was asked if Rise of Skywalker would be his final Star Wars film, to which he responded, “I sure hope so.”
When asked why felt that way, he added, “Well, because … I had closure in the last one. The fact that I’m involved in any capacity is only because of that peculiar aspect of the Star Wars mythology where if you’re a Jedi, you get to come back and make a curtain call as a Force ghost.”
Hamill has also previously made it clear that he didn’t like his character’s storyline in The Last Jedi, saying he disagreed with director Rian Johnson’s vision.
The actor believed the Luke in The Last Jedi wasn’t the same as George Lucas’ Luke.
In an interview with Business Insider, Hamill said, “I said to Rian… Jedis don’t give up. I mean even if he [Luke] had a problem he would maybe take a year to try and regroup.”
“If he made a mistake, he would try and right that wrong. So, right there we had a fundamental difference. But, it’s not my story anymore. It’s somebody else’s story [Rey’s], and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.”
He continued, “This is the next generation of Star Wars. I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker. He’s not my Luke Skywalker.
“But I had to do what Rian wanted me to do because it serves the story well. Listen, I still haven’t accepted it completely, but it’s only a movie. I hope people like it. I hope they don’t get upset.”
He has since apologised for those statements as they were made before he had seen the film.
It is also possible Hamill was angry because he knew George had written scripts for the new trilogy, but Disney later binned them when they bought Lucasfilm in 2012.