Mark Hamill Discusses His Involvement In ‘STAR WARS: EPISODE VII’

After what seems like an endless amount of articles involving fans and bloggers speculating what the next anticipated Star Wars installment will include or be about, we finally have some have something slightly more concrete to report.  Last week, Latino Review “broke the news” that Harrison Ford is about to sign a deal to return to the role of Han Solo.  However neither Lucasfilm nor the actor himself came out and confirmed this story; and the movie site failed to release their source for the story.  Rumors have always circulated about the inclusion of the three former leads from the original trilogy.  It isn’t until now though that we have had one of them speak so candidly about the upcoming films.  While making the rounds for his upcoming film Sushi Girl released by Magnet and Magnolia Pictures, Mark Hamill spoke to Entertainment Tonight and gave some info about his involvement and knowledge of the project. Read his thoughts below.

“They’re talking to us,” he reveals. “George [Lucas] wanted to know whether we’d be interested. He did say that if we didn’t want to do it, they wouldn’t cast another actor in our parts – they would write us out. … I can tell you right away that we haven’t signed any contracts. We’re in the stage where they want us to go in and meet with Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and Kathleen Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm. Both have had meetings set that were postponed — on their end, not mine. They’re more busy than I am.”

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“I said to George that I wanted to go back to the way it was, in the sense that ours was much more carefree and lighthearted and humorous – in my opinion, anyway. And another thing I’d want to make sure of is are we going to have the whole gang back? Is Carrie and Harrison and Billy Dee and Tony Daniels, everybody that’s around from the original [returning]? I want to make sure that everybody’s on board here, rather than just one. 

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“I’m assuming, because I haven’t talked to the writers, that these movies would be about our offspring — like my character would be sort of in the Obi-Wan range [as] an influential character. … When I found out [while making the original trilogy] that ultimate good news/bad news joke – the good news is there’s a real attractive, hot girl in the universe; the bad news is she’s your sister – I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to wind up like Sir Alec [Guinness]. I’m going to be a lonely old hermit living out in some kind of desert igloo with a couple of robots.'”

We will have to see how all this plays out in the coming months.  At the very least, it’s nice to hear that they’re reaching out to the original actors and that they have no plans on recasting their parts if they choose to not come back to fill the role.

Source: Entertainment Tonight and Yahoo News