Star Wars: Mark Hamill Crafted A Tragic Backstory For Luke Before ‘The Last Jedi’

Luke Skywalker is one of the most iconic heroes in all of cinema history, but his appearance in The Last Jedi hints that he’s experienced quite a bit of darkness and tragedy since we last saw him in Return of the Jedi. To help him prepare for his role in the film, Mark Hamill conjured a fictional backstory for his character to help motivate his performance, which includes both love and loss.

“I wrote lots and lots of scenarios,” Hamill told Entertainment Weekly. “I made notes that he fell in love with a woman who was a widow and had this young child.”

Sadly, this glimmer of hope was quickly extinguished.

“He left the Jedi to raise this young child and marry this woman,” Hamill revealed. “And the child got hold of a lightsaber and accidentally killed himself.”

Fans who tried to fill in the gaps of what Luke has been up to since Return of the Jedi might not have created such a tragic backstory, but Hamill’s narrative would explain his self-imposed exile and want nothing to do with the weapon that caused him so much suffering.

“It’s nothing to do with the story, but when I think about gun violence and you read these tragic stories of kids getting hold of their parents’ guns and killing a sibling or themselves, I mean, I had to go to really dark places to get where Luke needed to be for this story,” Hamill explained of his motivations.

While this narrative isn’t a canon part of Luke’s backstory, the actor would confer with writer/director Rian Johnson to make sure Hamill was approaching the character correctly.

“I sort of tested out some of my ideas just to make sure I wasn’t in conflict with anything,” Hamill pointed out. “He was really nurturing in that regard, encouraging me to find ways to justify the actions in this movie. But like I say, that little story I told about Luke leaving the Jedi and getting married, that’s not officially what happens.”

These details might have helped prepare the actor for his performance, yet he doesn’t think they’re relevant to the saga going forward.

“You know, if you look at it intellectually, I realized that it’s not my story anymore and so what [Luke] did or did not do in the intervening years aren’t really important to the audience at this point, but I have to work it out for myself,” Hamill confessed.

The story will continue when The Last Jedi hits theaters on December 15.

[H/T Entertainment Weekly]