Star Wars: Mark Hamill Finally Meets His On-Screen “Mother” Natalie Portman

It’s always wild to find out how real-life Hollywood compares to what we understand about the world created on the screen. For example: Star Wars: Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill decided to commemorate a milestone moment in the franchise while at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards: finally meeting his onscreen mom, Natalie Portman, for the first time! 

Mark Hamill (Finally) Meets His Star Wars Mom Natalie Portman

Hamill sent a tweet with the picture of him meeting Natalie Portman backstage at the 2024 Golden Globes, and captioned the post “Now I have finally met my “mother”, thanks to the @goldenglobes”.

This celebrity meet-up is something that Star Wars fans have been waiting to see for over two decades (or more) since Portman first made her Star Wars movie debut in the 1999 prequel film Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Mark Hamill shocked a lot of fans back in June of 2018 when he responded to the Star Wars Twitter Account’s happy birthday post to Portman by letting the world know, “Fun Fact: I’ve never met this woman.”

Shortly after the 2020 lockdowns began, Twitter was doing a Q&A session on social media, in which he admitted that since the 2018 post, he still had not met Portman. Even so, Hamill doubled down on his commitment to making it happen, calling it an item “very high on my 2020 To-Do List… #MeetingMyMovieMama.” 

Natalie Portman hasn’t been silent on the matter; in fact, when the Internet was freaking out about Hamill’s 2018 “confession” about not meeting her, Portman went on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and let it be known that she was game for the meeting: “It’s such a shame, I would love to meet him. Mark, I would love to meet you, come over!” 

How Are Mark Hamill & Natalie Portman Connected In Star Wars? 

If you don’t know your Star Wars lore that well, Natalie Portman played Luke Skywalker’s mother, Queen-turned-Senator Padmé Amidala. After the Battle of Naboo at the end of Phantom Menace, Padmé became a key figure in the Clone Wars, fighting the Separatist movement both on the battlefield and in the Senate. 

Padmé also started a doomed romance with Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), which resulted in her having a secret pregnancy, known only to a select few allies. When Anakin fell to the dark side and became Darth Vader, the trauma caused Padmé to go into labor – a labor she did not survive. 

Luke Skywalker never got to meet his mother, so there was a certain amount of symmetry between real life and fiction. However, at this point, it was ridiculous that no Star Wars franchise event, anniversary, or new release ever brought Hamilton and Portman together in the same room. But hey, where Star Wars failed, the Golden Globes succeeded. 

You can watch Star Wars movies on Disney+.