The Voice Actor Mark Hamill, More Than Just Luke Skywalker
With the second film in the latest Star Wars sequel trilogy showing next week, and the Batman Ninja trailer giving fans some Joker feels, undoubtedly Mark Hamill’s name is all over the internet again.
In an interview with American Way Magazine, Hamill shared his home, his early life, coming on board on the third Star Wars trilogy, his character Luke Skywalker, and his career in between the movies.
Hamill is a prolific voice over actor who has voiced countless characters in many animated series, films, and video games, most famous of all is his characterization of Joker starting with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. But his voice acting career started way back in the 1970’s even before the Star Wars franchise.
He admits that he has always had a knack for imitating other voices. He recalled in the interview, “I think the voice-over industry was a little suspicious of me at first. ‘Is he going to be spoiled? Is he going to have an entourage? Is he going to ride in a limousine?’ The same thing happened on Broadway. Once they saw that I was on time and doing my best work, they welcomed me with open arms.”
He voiced the character of Corey Anders in the Hanna-Barbera morning cartoon Jeannie in 1973, and as Sean in the animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy Wizards in 1977. His role as Joker paved way for him to voicing a variety of characters, mostly super villains like Joker.
He was The Hobgoblin in the Spider-Man animated series, Gargoyle in The Incredible Hulk, Maximus in Fantastic Four, Klaw in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Solomon Grundy and Trickster in Justice League and many more across both DC and Marvel animated universe.
Hamill also did the English dubs for Studio Ghibli films directed by Hayao Miyazaki – as Colonel Muska in the English language version of Castle in the Sky and as the Mayor of Pejite in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
In video games his voice roles include Detective Mosely in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, Assistant Director Wilson in Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, Adrian Ripburger in Full Throttle, Malefor The Dark Master in The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, The Watcher in Darksiders, and Master Eraqus in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.
Hamill was also credited as a documentary narrator in Ancient Voices, a 1999 series of documentaries on archaeology and ancient history, and narrated the Medal of Honor and Silver Star citations of Tibor Rubin, Ralph E. Pomeroy, John Finnigan and Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. for the 2013 Korean War documentary Finnigan’s Way. He has also done audiobook narration for the acclaimed World War Z as the character Todd Wainio,, as full cast for of the 1983 audiobook version of Pinocchio, and in the The Spiderwick Chronicles Volumes I–III,
The list can go on and on…
We still have to find out what lies ahead in the future of Luke Skywalker, but as a voice over actor, Mark Hamill is definitely making his way towards becoming a legend.
