Mark Hamill Describes His New Star Wars Diet

There’s one thing that Luke Skywalker fears more than falling to the dark side of the Force: stairs.

The final scene of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was filmed at Skellig Michael, an island off of the coast of Ireland that was formerly the location of a Christian monastery. There are hundreds of steps leading to the site where Rey and Luke’s meeting was filmed, and Mark Hamill was not excited to hear that they’d be restaging the scene for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

“When I read the script for Episode VIII, I went, ‘Oh my God, we’re going back?’ Because I said I was never going back,” Hamill tells Vanity Fair. The 65-year-old Star Wars star hoped a helicopter flight to the location would be possible, “which is so clueless of me, because there’s no landing pad, and it would mar the beauty of it all.”

Instead, Hamill was forced to walk up the steps, which took approximately 90 minutes with breaks every 10 or 15 minutes for Hamill to rest. With his role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi being much larger than his role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Hamill has begun eating on a Jedi diet.

“You just cut out all the things you love,” Hamill said, describing the diet. “Something as basic as bread and butter, which I used to start every meal with. Sugar. No more candy bars. No more stops at In-N-Out. It’s really just a general awareness, because in the old days I’d go, ‘Well, I’m not that hungry, but oh, here’s a box of Wheat Thins,’ and you don’t put the Wheat Thins in the same category as Lay’s potato chips, and yet I would sort of idly, absentmindedly eat these things while watching Turner Classic Movies, and ‘Oh, I ate the whole box!’ “

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the second film in the new Star Wars sequel trilogy that began with Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015. The film will deal with Luke training Rey to become a new, and possibly the last, Jedi. Meanwhile, the Resistance, including Poe Dameron and First Order defector Finn, continues to fight against the First Order, led by General Hux, while Supreme Leader Snoke and his Dark Side follower Kylo Ren further their mysterious plot.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson and stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Andy Serkis, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern, and Kelly Marie Tran.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in theaters Dec. 15, 2017

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