Mark Hamill On ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Cast: ‘It Was All Or Nothing’

Star Wars icon Mark Hamill, the actor who first brought Luke Skywalker to the big screen, was hesitant to be a part of the new film. He thought he would “ruin it.” In an interview with Yahoo Movies, Hamill explained why he wasn’t disappointed that none of the old Star Wars cast was in the recently-released trailer and why he was counting on his old colleagues Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher as a possible “out” for the new film.

“This is about the new generation of [Star Wars] characters; I think that’s the most important thing. It’s the opening act of a whole new approach to the storytelling. So I never thought that the stories would be — first of all, I never thought I’d be involved in it again, period. And then when George [Lucas] said that they wanted to do more, I rightly assumed that it wouldn’t be our story, because we had a beginning, a middle, and an end… And I mean, I’m one of those people where I just think, ‘Keep me out of it. I’ll ruin it, I’m sure!’ [Laughs] I’ll show up and just ruin the whole thing.”

Explaining his feeling that he would “ruin” the trailer, or even the new Star Wars film, Hamill elaborated that it was the pressure that made him uneasy. He expressed his uncertainty to George Lucas and then thought he could find camaraderie in the now-legendary actors that played Princess Leia and Han Solo.

“I had a feeling, I said, ‘You know what — if there’s a weak link, if Carrie [Fisher] or Harrison [Ford] decides they don’t want to do it, there’s an out. Because it’s all or nothing. It should be all of us or none of us.’ So I was ready to go either way. And now that we’re all in, we’ll see what happens.”

Harrison Ford’s involvement in the new Star Wars film made news earlier this year, when he suffered an injury on set. Hamill admitted Ford’s participation was a pleasant surprise, as Hamill and Ford had not seen each other in many years.

Hamill said he made a special trip to a theater with his family to watch the just-released Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer on the big screen. One behind-the-scenes tidbit Hamill offered to Yahoo was that the droid in the new trailer, whose named has been revealed to be BB-8, is not CGI. It is an actual prop.

Hamill has been primarily a voice actor in the past several years, most recently opposite Jim Parsons in the animated version of Elf. Entertainment Weekly recently reported that he will appear in an upcoming episode of The Flash as the Trickster. Hamill also played the Trickster in two episodes of a previous Flash series in 1991. EW called his participation one of the “most memorable” performances of that show.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is set for a December 2015 release.

[Mark Hamill Image via HitFix]