Mark Hamill Talks KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE and STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
Actor Mark Hamill — who, for those of you who may not know, has had a hell of a career outside the Star Wars films — appears in the upcoming film Kingsman: The Secret Service, and he spoke before a special early screening of the film in Los Angeles last night. SuperheroHype was on the scene, so you can read all of Hamill's quotes there, but I've pulled a few of his most interesting bits of conversation so you can get the gist of what was said below.
On writer Mark Millar asking permission to use his likeness in the Kingsman comic:
“I was a fan of his writing. I heard he wanted to talk to me about something, so I called him. He told me about the comic he was writing… Part of the plot involved kidnapping iconic science fiction actors, believe it or not. He said, ‘It’s sort of a mash-up.’ The comic is a throwback to the old hyper-stylized super-spy movies, like when Sean Connery was James Bond, contrasted with the sort of dystopian existence that he came from. It goes back and forth between the glamorized, idealized fantasy spy world back to this poor family living in a council house and so forth.”
(Spoilers for the comic below.)
The plot has been altered slightly from the comic, so it remains to be seen whether or not Hamill dies on screen in the same fashion as he does on the page. In the comic, he's rescued from a plane by a British Secret Service agent but their parachute opens too late and kills them both, which Hamill says "appealed to my perverse sense of humor."
“At one point [Mark Millar] said, ‘If we make this into a movie, will you play yourself?’ I thought, ‘Yeah, that sounds fine.’ What happened was, when they wrote the screenplay, that element of kidnapped sci-fi actors went away, but Mark still wanted me to do it. He said, ‘There’s another part we want you to play.’”
Kingsman: The Secret Service opens on February 13th in the U.S., but that wasn't the only thing Hamill talked about last night. He also mentioned a bit about what happened on a set in a galaxy far, far away:
“The most interesting aspect from my point of view is that [Star Wars] is now in the hands of the generation who were fans…It’s the next generation of filmmakers who were sort of weened on these pictures.
“You know, the security on it is just crazy. I’m surprised I can even admit I’m in it! …I like being surprised. It’s a whole different era now. When we made the original films, you had the odd reporter hanging around the studio bribing people to give them stories. Now, I said to them, ‘Do I really have to wear this robe and this hood that covers my entire head to go from the trailer to the soundstage?’ They said, ‘Yeah, there’s drones.’ Seriously! There’s drones flying over the studio trying to get pictures of whatever they can get pictures of.”
We've already seen the results of many of those drones captured when flying over the sets, but now it's up to J.J. Abrams and his editors and visual effects teams to bring this baby home. Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters on December 18th.