With the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX, Mark Hamill is about to complete his sixth and potentially final film in this forty-one-year-old space saga, and yet the actor’s still finding himself having to contend with old myths of how he first landed the role of Luke Skywalker.
There’s a story which has endured for many years that Robert Englund of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame was the one responsible for pushing Hamill to audition for the role of Luke Skywalker while the Star Wars actor was crashing at his place. This was allegedly after the future Freddy Krueger himself tried out for Han Solo, and it’s a tale that Englund has only too gladly helped spread.
But when a fan approached Hamill via Twitter to ask him if any of this was true, the star took the opportunity to set the record straight:
“Robert was 1 of several actors who told me about #StarWars-When I told my agent-She’d already set up an audition & still gets annoyed he takes the credit. Sleeping on his couch is nonsense! I’d been a working actor for over 6 years & had my own Apt. #SettingTheRecordStraight”
Indeed, while Star Wars would prove a major career boost for Hamill, the actor had already been involved in various TV work, including numerous sitcoms and animated shows. Though he was hardly a Hollywood A-lister, he wasn’t exactly on the verge of sleeping on the streets, either.
While Hamill seems pretty happy these days to discuss his previous big screen outings on social media, the actor recently stated in clear terms that he won’t be answering any questions about his part in Star Wars: Episode IX. After Luke seemingly died in The Last Jedi, it’s become a popular prediction that we’ll be seeing him in Force Ghost form in this next installment, though we’ll find out for sure when the film hits theaters on December 20th, 2019. As for Englund, you can see him reprise his own trademark role in an upcoming episode of The Goldbergs.