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00:00I can't tell you how many times I'd be sitting in with the kids and Nickelodeon
00:06song I think I'm the voice of that gangster crab yeah yeah that's me what
00:13show is this Powerpuff Girls I don't remember Powerpuff Girls that's it you
00:17don't remember because there's so many
00:21when you look at the night sky you're seeing the greatest equation in the
00:30universe heck you're dancing that's math too I mean what's the language of dance
00:37how do you learn your steps it's even in the name I mean they call it the count
00:43one and two and three and four what's a waltz one two three one two three just
00:48numbers just math and more than that there's an art to it what I do all these
00:57files here all these folders these are all people's lives welcome to the actor's
01:05side he needs no introduction especially if you're a Star Wars fan and who isn't
01:10I mean he's a legend but he's got an extraordinary acting career too both in
01:16front of the screen and voiceovers I'm going to talk about that and it's two
01:21current films this year alone both from Stephen King stories and one of course the
01:26life of Chuck and the other the long walk this is Mark Hamill welcome to the
01:32actor's side thank you Peter glad to be here I was just talking to you beforehand
01:37boy there's a real connection to your career I think with Stephen King if I'm wrong
01:44I may be wrong but I think when you went to audition for Star Wars they were also
01:50doing auditions for Carrie and exactly were you can you tell that story well it
01:55was a cattle call me go into a room and there's 50 guys there late teens for Luke
02:02and 35 ish and up for Han Solo and I went into the room and it was Brian De Palma
02:09sitting to my left and George sitting next to him and it was one of those so tell us a
02:17little bit about yourself wow it wasn't you know it wasn't specific to the material and
02:23you know you did your usual thing and after two or three minutes they said well thank you
02:27very much uh I had had a an interview like that for American Graffiti and I didn't make
02:33that cut I did the you know the the perfunctory uh summation of you know I'm the middle of seven
02:40children my dad was in the military I went to nine schools in 12 years etc and it's just you
02:46either make it or you don't it was Fred Roos in that case I didn't meet George but uh it was funny
02:52because when I came out I said Brian did all the talking and I said who was that little guy with the
02:58beard that was sitting and they said that's George Lucas oh okay uh but I didn't make the cut for
03:04Carrie but obviously I did uh get the next step was a screen test uh-huh that I did with Harrison
03:11I never read the script until I got the part oh wow so from the 12 pages of the the scene
03:18it was in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon no Wookiee just Han Solo and Luke and I couldn't figure
03:26out I went to when I went to do the screen test I went to up to Harrison I said you were in American
03:32Graffiti is this like a parody or a send-up of science psychology he goes hey you know let's get
03:40it done you know he was no help at all yeah I said the same thing to George and he said uh well let's
03:45just do it and we'll talk about it later translation let's just do it and we'll never talk about it ever
03:50again but I couldn't get whether it was because I thought who talks like this right yeah it was so
03:59unlike anything I I'd done I thought well it's a parody of Flash Gordon I wonder if it's like
04:05should I do an arch or have an attitude about it and the only decision I made which turned out to be
04:11the right one is I'm not going to take it upon myself to comment on the material I'll just do it as
04:17sincerely as I can which turned out to be the right choice but like there's a line in it
04:23that's not thank God not in the movie but I'll never forget it because it was in the screen test
04:29where Solo says okay I've held up my side of the bargain I'm dropping you and the droids as soon as
04:37I can and I say to him but we can't turn back fear is their greatest defense I doubt if the actual
04:43security there is any greater than it was on Aquali or Sullust and what there is is most likely
04:47directed towards a large-scale assault huh that wasn't in the movie that thank goodness but I mean
04:56and it it makes sense but we can't turn back fears their greatest events meaning the death star is so
05:02intimidating yeah I doubt if the actual security there is any greater that was on Aquali or Sullust two
05:08made-up planets and what there is is most likely uh directed towards a large-scale assault like an
05:14armada we can slip in because we're the size of a dime now you can diagram the sentence and make
05:20sense of it now trying to make it sound like it's a spontaneous thought it just paid to you in the
05:26moment uh George is I mean as Harrison famously said to George on set you can write this shit you just
05:34can't say it he had a way of really uh you know he was remarkable I you know I I had gone over
05:46the to do uh the first portion of the film which was in Tunisia northern Africa and I went with Sir
05:53Alec and the the actors playing the droids uh Tony and and Kenny Baker and once that was done we came
06:03back to the studio and Harrison came over and I remembered her from the not only did I remember
06:08him from uh American Graffiti and the conversation which he was impressed he was glad I knew him his
06:15work but he was instantly I think George does that he casts people so close to what he wants
06:23that he doesn't really have to do heavy lifting in terms of direction right so Harrison was effortlessly
06:30cool snarky uh you know and I like Luke instantly looked up to him as a big brother or a mentor and uh
06:41just fantastic and the last piece of the puzzle of course was Carrie and I wasn't prepared for her
06:49she was 19 years old and I said we should probably go to dinner to get to know each other a little bit
06:55Guinness had done the same thing for me so we went to dinner and within 10 minutes she's telling me
07:03stories about her family but in I mean like should I be hearing this personal things that I wouldn't
07:12share with somebody unless I knew them five ten years she was just unbelievably candid to the part
07:20where it was like excruciating about drug addiction all this stuff I mean it was yeah
07:27but but effortlessly witty and uh uh we just the chemistry was just there I mean I didn't realize
07:35at that time that all that time we spent together running around the Death Star and having just the
07:41time of our lives it was just so much fun to go to work to get paid to pretend as you did when you were
07:49a child yeah making up scenarios in your backyard um so amazing I got a chance to interview Carrie
07:57yeah in Cannes at the Cannes Film Festival and she had a dog named Gary yes and Gary had her own chair
08:06and Gary went everywhere he just jumped up was part of the interview amazing and then just recently
08:12Harrison Ford so you're my third part of this trilogy here right it it's extraordinary when you think
08:19when you started that movie and you had no idea yeah what it would be that this is going to affect your
08:25entire life not to the extent I personally said I'm Robert Watts was the production manager and on the
08:32very first day at the studio I went into his office and he said what do you think about what we're about to
08:38uh start here and I said I think we're on a winner I thought it if it plays the way it reads people
08:46don't understand the script before the special effects before John Williams music just popped it
08:53it was funny it was unpredictable I loved it I absolutely loved it now I predisposed to like
09:00these sort of things because I was a big fan of the original King Kong and Ray Harryhaus and I loved all
09:06that sort of science fiction fantasy all my life um Carey and Harrison not so much but I said no I
09:14don't I said to my friend Jonathan Benaird look up all the grosses for fantasy films you don't have to go
09:21back to the silent era but like from sound on do a printout and he did by the way I gave him the
09:28script he said can I share it with Meredith sure I mean we're passing it all around this is before you
09:33know right it became top secret and your name was uh you know serial numbers and about leaks and so
09:41forth but uh I said look it's at that time it was budgeted at uh seven and a half million so you do the
09:49math that's double plus half I said oh we're gonna make 35 if we make a dime and I said that'll be
09:56enough of the we were concerned because we had signed a three-picture deal if that one was successful
10:02we'd owe them another one and a third uh so I was I of course did not have any idea that it would
10:10uh land the way it did but I did think that uh uh just I said it's got everything the humor I mean
10:17robots arguing over whose fault it is the princess is effortlessly it's feminism personified I mean
10:25she's not entertainment intimidated by Vader in any way she is disgusted with her rescue you call this a
10:33rescue give me that gun I mean that's they're right it's hilarious it is it is on its face
10:39if you play completely sincerely right which is what you did so brilliantly all of us do you know
10:45I'm curious though taking you back to if you had gotten Carrie yeah it would have been a whole
10:51different uh career and that I had a television series called the Texas Wheel I wish I was going to
10:56ask you about because Jack Elam I love that show I did too and MTM right yeah MTM Mary Tyler Moore
11:02productions and and it was written and created by Dale McRaven and the New York Times the critic the
11:11critics loved it oh it's so good probably the finest bucolic comedy since tobacco road now if that had
11:16been a hit I wouldn't have been in I was literally gonna ask you that because that show got canceled
11:23right away it's one of the four episodes were aired we did 13 they canceled us after four what happened was
11:29they bought it and they were sort of afraid of it because it was so unconventional at that time
11:35to be a sitcom with no laugh track was unheard of yeah I mean the they wanted us to put a laugh track on
11:43it a CBS offered to buy it make it an hour long uh but I was devastated because it was a uh a character
11:53part in other words my character hated Jack Elam as the father but was more like him than he realized
12:01big braggart you know pretended to be a womanizer when he was a virgin I mean it was a funny character
12:08but he was very unaware self-unaware and I loved it because I didn't get that kind of comedy uh I mean
12:16I didn't get parts that were as that I relished as much and that was when that was canceled I was
12:24just devastated I told my agent I said I don't even want to work anymore I mean I'm if I come back
12:30it'll be in a year or two I just don't I just can't see it it was the worst thing that ever happened
12:36to me and it was so good and Gary Busey yes yeah and I tested they set me before the older brother and
12:43I tested with Tom Ligon a Broadway actor I think he was in streamers very fine actor and Gary Busey now
12:51I didn't have any uh casting approval but they asked me what did you think and I said well Tom
12:57Ligon is just rock solid he means he couldn't be better but I said I have to tell you that Gary
13:04Busey is authentic as it comes I mean he was from like Oklahoma or something I just couldn't believe
13:09it he was so unconventional in his look and his demeanor and all of that um but you know I don't
13:16regret I think what if that had been a hit and had run seven years and I didn't do Star Wars I'm I would
13:23be okay with that because then it would have set me up to probably have uh a chance at more comedy
13:30which I I really loved yeah it's always the things that didn't happen yeah and where the road not taken
13:36goes but that was a true I have some bootlegs of that show and I I said that's a classic case
13:43of them canceling something that would have been a smash hit there's no question they were afraid
13:48of it in other words they bought it and they said it's so unconventional instead of being on at eight
13:52o'clock you know Monday through Friday yeah they put it at 9 30 on Friday in the second half hour of the
14:00Rockford files and the second half hour of the CBS Friday night of the movies and the four movies
14:07we faced were Bullet, Bonnie and Clyde, Willard and I forget and some other fantastically successful
14:15feature film the second half hour so we didn't have a chance no chance but it was funny because
14:21the other two networks bid for it but ABC feeling the sting of letting all in the family go yeah
14:28remember they produced the original pilot didn't pick it up and let CBS buy it yeah so it's like
14:35a kid saying oh well it's we don't want it but you can't have it yeah really and it would have made
14:42Jack Elam a much much bigger he was such a natural comedian one of the nicest sweetest men I've ever met
14:51and yeah when I see him I mean uh uh in in because he had a career he said I was yeah I was the yeah
15:00boss and I said what's that well I'd ride up on a horse and uh listen to the other actor tell us what
15:06to do and go yeah boss and I'd ride off but he was a fantastic guy I loved him so much well now I'm
15:13taking you back to Carrie because you didn't get care enough but your whole career has come full
15:18circle because this year you're working with two Stephen King yeah uh movies and the first one won
15:25the um popular award at the Toronto Film Festival which is a very important award and everything life
15:31of Chuck put it on the map and I I showed it in my screening series and it deeply moved the people I
15:38could tell you know I show a lot of big movies and this one really had a surprising effect I I
15:45thought even when Mike contacted me about it I think it was in an email I immediately ordered
15:51if it bleeds which is the collection of three uh novellas that it's included now it's a standalone
15:58with the movie as the cover but I was really taken aback because just with Mike's I had only worked
16:06with him in fall of the house Mike Flanagan Mike Flanagan but I was a huge fan I'd seen the haunting of
16:13hill house the haunting of blind manor midnight mass when he when I agreed to do it I went back to his
16:19imdb and watched everything he's ever done a lot of it's online if you can't get it online you can order
16:26it in the case of oculus it was a great thing because the one of the extras on oculus is his student
16:32film version of the same material uh so I I can't think more highly of Mike Flanagan both as a writer
16:40and a director and I'm just a really nice person but it's a great role for you too but the thing is
16:48considering his reputation and Stephen King yeah I'm expecting the epic supernatural horror of all time
16:56and when I read it I I just couldn't believe it it was unlike anything Stephen King had written and
17:03you know he'd written Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption and The Body which became Stand By Me so
17:09I mean to be fair he's much more versatile than people will give him credit for but even having said
17:15that uh my wife was saying well what's it like I said it's unlike anything I've ever read now I don't
17:22know how they're going to adapt it whether they're going to use the same act three act two act one all
17:27of that yeah but uh Mike did a fantastic job and and and it's unlike anything he's ever and playing
17:34Albie Krantz yeah is this guy it's a lower key thing unless you're talking to him about numbers well
17:40math then the guy lights up exactly that's what really informed who this man is because he's generally
17:48fairly dull he drinks a little too much but he is devoted to his wife and his grandson but
17:54as you say when the grandson says math is boring well it's like he spit on the pope it just
18:03he comes alive and his defense of math is extraordinary you know I said to my it's cut down I remember
18:11because there's a line that I said to Benjamin Pajak this extraordinary young man who plays uh that
18:20incarnation of Chuck I say and math can make you popular the look on his face and that's not in
18:27the movie anymore I I just recently asked him why did that go and he said well I felt like I had
18:32overwritten the scene which is unusual for my that's a great line yeah math can make you popular yeah
18:39because I had to take math over and over I could not that was not my strong not either
18:45but you also they made you look a lot older in this too I mean what I did was I first of all the
18:51wardrobe and hair people are the unsung heroes for actors because they've read the script they're
18:57very artistically minded so the clothing as we were going through oh yes yes that best and so you
19:03assemble the wardrobe I said white out my hair I didn't want to wear a wig because uh I didn't
19:10want extra time in the makeup chair I've always wanted to shave my head either completely bald or
19:16like here and have the Don Rickles strands across but my wife she's adamant she won't let me do that
19:24so I said okay just make it all white and I had grown my mustache as much as I could and they
19:29whited that out and I'm only telling you this because I the final piece was the glasses and they
19:35showed me all the different glasses oh these this is perfect and I put them on it was only then that
19:41I looked in the mirror and went oh my god I'm Geppetto or Pinocchio I look exactly like the
19:49you kind of did 1940s Pinocchio yeah very very good and what a terrific film that is that that's when
19:57you want to discover any which way you can and the long walk then to have this which is polar opposite
20:04I mean you are playing a vicious guy yeah and the major yeah yeah is in this dystopian society basically
20:12taking these 50 kids on a walk where only one of them will survive the premise is so ghastly that
20:20I thought oh my god I'm not sure I'm going to be able to even see this movie much less be in it
20:26it's that horrible but what's clever about Stephen King is that's an attention getter and this is a
20:34movie that just grabs you from the very first moment and never lets go but what's clever
20:42about it is when you get past that premise the real heart and soul of the story is the young men
20:49experiencing that ordeal that walk yes and the alliances and the rivalries and the triumphs and
20:57all of it it's that that's where the real you know the heart of the movie is and uh uh
21:05uh uh my character is you know he there there's no antagonist really the state is the antagonist but
21:13as representative of the state that falls to me and he is like just a sociopath i mean brutal uh uh
21:24uh no sense of of empathy whatsoever and it i what i love is that my my my job was clear and uh
21:37the the the real i think the performance is that i find so remarkable are are these young guys and
21:43most of them i'd never seen before yeah you know licorice pizza for uh cooper but that cooper
21:50yeah but david johnson i hadn't seen anything oh my gosh really both those guys and the relationship
21:58they have are incredible but right down the line charlie parker and i don't want to start because
22:04i'll leave somebody out but charlie hoonham also yes yes uh um uh roman griffin davies he i've seen him in
22:14in jojo rabbit but uh that's what was so remarkable and it was like seeing it for the first time because
22:20i didn't really witness it while they were filming you know i mean my character wasn't around to see
22:27all that i'd read it i've said i wonder how they're going to pull this off and i thought that's where
22:32because i know for instance my mom would have not wanted to see this movie it's it's it's not for
22:39everyone but if you stick it out it has a lot more um i think humanity than uh you would guess from
22:48the premise very powerful and now you have one more movie for 2025 coming out in december you're
22:54about your eyebrow very high brow yeah but uh spongebob the movie uh search for uh square pan don't you
23:02love the title the spongebob movie search for square pan it sounds like it's important and believe me it's
23:09more of the inspired silliness of that franchise now what's interesting i when i accepted it i said
23:18well now i've got to do my homework and i you know googled and went to imdb and i lo and behold
23:24in the fifth season i did an episode that i had totally forgotten about i went oh wow
23:31in animation you do volume volume volume since you send the animation away and it doesn't come back
23:38for nine months to a year uh and they're not the studio is not going to say send an email hey your
23:44episodes on this tuesday at 9 30 no you're all on your own i can't tell you how many times i'd be sitting in
23:50with the kids and nickelodeon song i go shh i think i'm the voice of that gangster crab
23:58yeah yeah that's me what show is this powerpuff girls i don't remember powerpuff
24:03that says you don't remember because there's so many uh what what brought it back into focus was
24:09that episode was the first time that ernest borgnine had worked with tim conway
24:14since mikhail's navy oh wow a show i had watched in the 60s and i was
24:18really excited to meet them i mean borgnine and marty and i mean
24:24both of them i'm the huge fans ernest had been recorded separately but tim conway was there so
24:31i mean i got the fanboy out about to be amazing carol burnett show yeah he's just brilliant and
24:38like i say i was so good that 18 years later they brought me back
24:42well i pulled this off of wikipedia but okay this is just the part of his filmography that's called
24:51voice roles okay so boom boom boom boom yeah i've never seen anything like this it goes on for days
25:01and then video games it continues you know what's interesting is i went to broadway because i said i'm
25:06not getting character parts though that i'd like you know and uh in new york you can just audition
25:12you know uh uh and so i auditioned to replace uh in amadeus right for sir peter hall and he said well
25:20actually we're waiting to see if peter firth gets his green card and and they put me up in a hotel i
25:28knew a lot of times they said oh you did a great job here i knew they were serious because they they
25:32paid for me to wait around and it turned out and i said i hated it was like being uh you know john
25:38cassavetes in rosemary's baby where you're wishing bad things for another actor not that he would die
25:44but that he wouldn't get his green card that's what i was extreme but uh no he got his green card and i
25:50thought oh i really wanted this but as a consolation uh the the the producers who were doing amadeus put me
25:58in elephant man and then they put me in the first national tour which uh uh peter hall did direct so
26:05i did that so you you you got away from the luke sky i did i don't know seven or eight shows one off
26:11broadway for for alan arkin i played the sam levine groucho marx part in room service i got the best
26:18reviews of my career because they came thinking the critics came thinking i was playing the midwestern
26:23playwright you know the wide-eyed innocent instead i was the sleazy uh borden miller and uh uh uh
26:32you know it was great but what i the reason i bring this up was i had done one animated series
26:39when i was a teenager the animated version of i dream the genie for hannah barbera and i loved it i
26:44mean i met all these icons of voiceover dodds butler oh paul freeze and jude foray and people that i
26:51admired when i was a kid because you know you couldn't google in those days but i would go to
26:56the record store and get a rocky and bullwinkle album and look on the back and write down all
27:01these names so i was really into it i mean i remember as a kid seeing this distinguished man
27:08with white hair step up to the microphone clarence nash and do the voice of donald duck now i might have
27:14been five or six i never thought oh yeah there must be people you know to me cartoons just appeared full
27:21blown yeah and so very early on i said i want that job i do a terrible donald duck i i'm my my you
27:29know fred flintstone isn't that bad i mean i was doing voice voices as a kid and what i discovered was
27:38a character actor the definition is is an actor who you don't see the actor you see the character
27:45yeah well animation does that for everybody everything so you can play you're going to play
27:50characters you would never get on camera you know if you're a six foot tall muscle bound bodyguard if
27:57you can get the voice right you've got the part even though you'd never be considered if you were on
28:01camera so this was a revelation to me i thought when i really got into voiceover doing three four
28:07or five shows a week i said i could i'm happy with this i don't have to be on camera ever again as far
28:14as i'm concerned uh and it was kind of a lesson in the sense that you're not there for the acclaim
28:21because these voiceover people the most famous characters you've never heard of yeah you know
28:27people like jim cummings and again i don't want to get started because there's so many great ones but
28:32they they're so prolific and they do so many different characters uh uh and yet people don't
28:39recognize that as you have done and of course famously also is the joker which you played for 30
28:46years that was a turning point because when i got that part people first of all they didn't believe
28:52it was me the people would demand me do the voice in the grocery store or theater because they thought
28:57i was treated or something but um and what was interesting about that is a lot of times if you
29:05want a part i mean i would have loved to play the joker but you're uh sometimes you can throw your
29:11timing off if you want it too badly there's a desperation that comes through that makes people
29:16uncomfortable here's the context of of the joker about a month before i was going in to read for it
29:24the fan world had freaked out over the casting of michael keaton as batman uh oh he's mr mom he's a
29:32comedy actor he can't i haven't seen an inch of film right but they went nuts and i thought wow if they
29:38think mr mom can't play batman how are they going to feel about luke skywalker playing the joker there's
29:45no way i can get this and because of that i went in knowing i couldn't get it i was completely relaxed
29:52because i knew i couldn't get it uh uh they had one drawing in black and white of the joker and the
29:59only note was don't think nicholson and i thought oh yeah well i wouldn't have done that anyway and
30:04nobody can do jack like jack so i was completely relaxed until they said you got it then i thought
30:10oh no you know i can't do this but uh but what i'm saying in terms of turning point when you do one
30:18thing well they sort of want you to do the same thing over and over again so for a while i was
30:22typed as megalomaniacal villains you know hobgoblin and spider-man and yeah i don't go through the list
30:29but what i'm saying is uh voiceover is first of all they're some of the most talented people i've ever
30:36worked with on stage screen television you name it and they're so welcoming once they realize you don't
30:43have a big entourage or show up in a limo or have airs about you that you're there to sit down and do
30:49the work i mean within a two weeks i was one of them and uh you know i'll say you get these series
30:56that you know like i remember reading uh avatar the last airbender i said well this is really good
31:04but it's too smart there's no flow what are they going to put it on you know uh powerpuff girls this and
31:11then two dumb dogs there's no it's just too intelligent yeah what i didn't uh foresee was
31:18how young parents would watch it with their kids it spread in that sense and it ran like eight seasons
31:25you never know me you never know the people don't know that it's mark hamill behind all of that it's so
31:31fire lord ozai was his name and i loved it i mean again if you in your mind can see yourself in that
31:40part what's liberating is that you can't be seen so you're going to make choices that you wouldn't
31:46make on camera uh because with with voiceover it's sort of a a heightened reality that that uh more
31:54naturalistic films wouldn't want to see and i i just love it i well who knew mark hamill is the
32:01ultimate character actor too you know so many so many when i look at this and that includes life of
32:07chuck which you can check out now it's available digitally everywhere and the long walk is in
32:12theaters as well and uh extraordinary performances and we can't wait for spongebob
32:18search for square pants this is mark hamill thank you for joining thanks for having me
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