HAMILL: I've learned that the movies will never finally end. It just goes on and on and on and on. I mean, it's going to be in 3D, then it's going to be smellivision, then it's going to be a ride in an amusement park, then they'll come to your house and perform it with puppets on your lawn ... it'll never end! I accepted that a long time ago.
Q: Have you found it confining to be known primarily as Luke Skywalker?
HAMILL: Jackie Gleason had "The Honeymooners" -- there are other parallels to people that do things that sort of transcend everything else they've ever done. And you can either get frustrated and focus on the negative aspect of that or you can just let it roll of your back like water off a duck's back, laugh and move on. Because if I didn't believe that the most interesting challenges were ahead of me, I probably would retire.
I've invested well, I'm not hurting for money. To me, 'Harrigan 'n Hart' [a musical Hamill starred in for its brief 1985 run] is one of the biggest triumphs of my career, and yet it was not considered a commercial success. But for someone like me who had never done a musical before to hold my own among people that had done 30 musicals, that really felt like an accomplishment to me.
The Drama Desk nomination for best actor in a musical was just icing on the cake. Yeah, I would have loved to have it run and maybe it would have changed my career because I love theater so much. I think theater has given me the opportunity to show what a character actor I can be.
Q: But when it's all said and done, do you have some pride to have played one of the most famous heroes of all time?
HAMILL: You know where it comes from? It's not so much from the industry ... but the 9-year-old kid who looks at you like a cross between Superman and Santa Claus. And you'd have to be a really, really hardened cynic not to be moved by that.
Not only that, but just doing the interviews for this animation series, I can't tell you how many people have said, "I got into the business because of that movie." ... I totally understand that because I remember walking out of "Jason and the Argonauts" [1963] and saying, "I don't know how they got those skeletons to fight, but someday I want that to be my job. To make skeletons fight."
I never saw myself so much as an actor. I wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles Schulz and create my own world and be able to have a studio at home and not commute and be able to be with my family. I just didn't have the skills to pull that off and so I've gravitated toward theater because I like all of it.
Q: Will you be part of the brouhaha for "Revenge of the Sith"?HAMILL: I couldn't get on a lot of the late-night shows I wanted to for "Comic Book: The Movie." But of course when these "Star Wars" movies come out, they all want you to come in and do this sketch or that sketch. And it's tempting, but I want to hold off, because I want to have something new. ... It seems to me that no matter how modest it is, you've got to offer them something new, so that you don't become a nostalgia artist. And that's always been what I strive to do.
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