Though Star Wars legend Mark Hamill isn’t interested in returning to the franchise, his reasoning behind this decision is not only sound, but touching.
In an interview with ABC News that included his wife Marilou York and daughter Chelsea, Hamill discussed how the time between the original Star Wars trilogy and its sequels allowed for them to live a relatively normal family life. Of course, the interviewer couldn’t help but bring up Carrie Fisher, who Hamill and his family were quite close with in recent years.
RELATED: Mark Hamill Discusses the Inspirations For His Joker Performance
Hamill’s wife reflected that she still has “a hard time with that” and Hamill said that Fisher’s passing affected the entire family “Terribly!” In fact, it’s Fisher’s death that has most affected Hamill’s desire to continue acting in the films. “It really has tarnished my ability to enjoy it to its fullest. You were asking earlier, ‘Are you going to come back?’ I don’t care anymore on that level because Han Solo is gone, Luke is gone. And you just can’t get the band back together the way you wanted it to be,” he explained.
Hamill has been fairly vocal about the direction Disney is taking the Star Wars film franchise, worrying about oversaturation and criticizing writer-director Rian Johnson’s portrayal of Luke in The Last Jedi — though he later backtracked and said he was on board with Johnson’s decisions. He has also revealed that he was fully aware of Luke’s fate in the end of the film. That, combined with his latest comments, would suggest he isn’t rooting for Luke to appear as a Force Ghost in Episode IX.
RELATED: Watch Mark Hamill & Jimmy Kimmel Wage Their Own Star War
In some ways, he seemed to speak to Luke Skywalker as much as to Carrie Fisher when he said, “Rather than be sorry that we can’t have more of her; I’m just grateful that we had the time with her that we did.”
Star Wars: Episode IX is set for release on December 20, 2019. The next film in the Star Wars franchise, Solo: A Star Wars Story, opens in theaters May 25 and is directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra and Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca. They’re joined by Thandie Newton as Val, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37, Paul Bettany as Dryden Vos and Woody Harrelson as Tobias Beckett.