While most of the cast of The Fall of the House of Usher is made up of Mike Flanagan regulars, the acclaimed filmmaker turned to a genuine genre icon to bring one of Edgar Allan Poe’s pivotal characters to life in his new Netflix series. Flanagan enlisted Star Wars legend Mark Hamill to play a ruthless lawyer and fixer named Arthur Pym, who comes from Poe’s only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. This is a character who is very cold, calculated, and completely terrifying when he needs to be — a far cry from the characters people are used to seeing Hamill play.
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But having the chance to do something so different is a big reason why Hamill joined Flanagan’s new series in the first place. Speaking to Netflix’s Tudum publication, Hamill opened up about bringing Arthur Pym to life in The Fall of the House of Usher.
“I was intrigued by the fact that they would consider me for this part,” Hamill told Tudum. “Why would they think of me? That’s thinking outside the box, and I love doing quirky, unexpected things and things that I haven’t done before.”
“I am an unabashed fan of The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and, by the time they approached me for this, I’d also seen Midnight Mass, which was a great departure,” he continued. “The first two were sort of linked in that they’re in the world of ghosts. But with Midnight Mass he went full horror, and I just loved all three of them. So, at first, I thought, ‘Well, I’d want to watch this.’”
Hamill also enjoyed what Poe did with the original character of Arthur Pym in his book. The adventures of the younger Pym are referenced in Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher, having influenced the older, darker version of the character Hamill set out to play.
“Although the ultimate Edgar Allan Poe moment is when they’re at a point in the story where it’s four survivors and they’re starving to death,” Hamill said of Poe’s novel, which he revisited after getting the part. “So they decide to draw straws to decide who they’re going to cannibalize to survive. I said, ‘Oh boy, it doesn’t get more Edgar Allan Poe than that.’”
What did you think of Mark Hamill’s performance in The Fall of the House of Usher? Let us know in the comments!
