Secrets of the Force

by Edward Gross

  BRIAN JAY JONES

  I love that Marcia Lucas was teasing George about when he was casting Princess Leia and that he was going to see every starlet in Hollywood coming through there, and Lucas is essentially just like a brain in a jar who could care less. Marcia is teasing him about it and he’s like, “I’m going to sit here and look at 1,200 people over three weeks. Just give me a break.”

  CARRIE FISHER

  Although I hadn’t read much science fiction before, I had a kind of active space fantasy life all my own. Once I saw a science fiction movie that scared the hell out of me. I don’t know what it was, but it took place on the moon. And I used to be afraid of Martians. There was an invisible Martian in that movie who was surrounded by an electric field. If you got thrown into that electric field, it was goodbye forever. It was really scary; scarier than even burglars or snipers. You can’t put Martians in jail.

  GEORGE LUCAS

  I wanted someone tough. I didn’t conceive of the Princess as just a damsel in distress. I wanted her very young, younger than Luke, but I knew she had to be able to stand up to the bad guys. She’s actually in charge of the Rebellion. She’s gotten caught, but she’s fighting. That’s why I chose Carrie Fisher.

  CARRIE FISHER

  I wanted to do the role of Princess Leia, because I wanted to have real conversations with people with bubbles on their heads. I just wanted to be blasé about someone sitting across from me being a “small person” or some strange-looking person who was hired through the “Ugly Agency.” I love that there’s an agency in London called that. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to be casually sitting around with these people as if they didn’t have hair-dryer heads and things like that. I wanted to sit next to Wookiees and Jawas and droids.

  * * *

  Mark Richard Hamill was born in Oakland, California, to Virginia Suzanne and U.S. Navy Captain William Thomas Hamill on September 25, 1951. He was one of seven children, in a family that would move between Navy bases from Hawaii to Virginia to Japan. As such, Hamill found his best of friends were the characters in comic books and TV shows: a true fanboy from the very beginning. Hamill finally landed in Los Angeles, where he enrolled in Los Angeles City College with a major in drama.

  Early roles for Hamill included a recurring role in the soap opera General Hospital and a starring role in the short-lived comedy The Texas Wheelers. But it was an audition his friend Robert Englund (the future Freddy Krueger) had for the former George Lucas project Apocalypse Now that would change Mark Hamill’s life forever. As Englund left his audition, he walked across the hall to where George Lucas himself was having auditions for Star Wars, and realized this role would be perfect for his friend Mark Hamill.

  Following Star Wars, Hamill found success on the stage in Amadeus and The Elephant Man, but he found it difficult to break free of the Luke Skywalker persona on the silver screen. He gradually found work as a successful voice-over actor for animated television and film, and eventually grew to great acclaim for his performance of the Joker based on the famous DC comics character. Unexpectedly, most of all to himself, Hamill resurrected the role of Luke Skywalker in the sequel trilogy that began with 2015’s The Force Awakens.

  JOHN L. FLYNN

  Luke Skywalker, the hero of this space fantasy, was originally imagined as a swashbuckling freebooter like Flash Gordon or John Carter. Adept with both sabers and blasters, the character had risen to the ranks of general and Jedi Knight. In the thirteen-page summary, General Skywalker leads a rebel band of teenage boys against the Empire. By the first draft screenplay, Luke was still a general in his early sixties and the hero of the piece was now Anakin Starkiller, aged eighteen. Several revisions later, Luke was again the center of the story. He had become a teenager who must rescue his brother, Deak, from the clutches of Darth Vader. George Lucas felt there was much more room for character development if he introduced a young innocent who must grow to manhood, and kept the story central to him. By the next to final draft, Luke had become a farm boy, son of a famous Jedi Knight who must deliver R2-D2 to a rebel stronghold on a faraway planet. The evolution of his character was nearly complete; all he needed was a mentor, which he found in Obi-Wan Kenobi.

  MARK HAMILL

  I’m the middle of seven children. My father was in the Navy, we moved a lot. I went to nine schools in twelve years, which is a real sort of schizophrenic experience, because once you get settled in, in one school, you’d be moving from coast to coast. You’d be in San Diego and you finally find your niche, and you get transferred to New York where the sensibilities are completely different: “Look, here comes Surfer Joe!” You’d have to change your clothing and your attitude and your thought process, because you know your goal at that age anyway is just to fit in and hopefully avoid being beaten up on a regular basis. That’s good enough. So now you know why I am the way I am.

  I grew up on a naval base in Japan, which was the greatest film-going experience anywhere. My father was in the Navy, and they had all the movies free and first run there. They had movies even before they came out in the States, and the bill changed every night at the base theater. I learned a lot then. I saw everything. I was so fascinated with the films I even auditioned for the voice of the cartoon character Astroboy, which was made over there. I made it to the finals, but I didn’t get the part. But I did get to go down to the studio and I saw giant monster feet and little models of Japanese cities waiting to be crushed. I loved that. I also loved King Kong. It was on television every day for a week and it just wiped me out. I was a blob of jelly at the end. My parents finally had to order me not to see it anymore. King Kong was to me what Gone with the Wind was to girls.

  When I heard about Star Wars, I thought if they were making a big space fantasy movie, I’d be satisfied just to watch part of it being shot. I even asked my agent if she could get me onto the set. I wanted to see some of the special effects being done. I wasn’t thinking of acting in it.

  BRIAN JAY JONES

  Mark Hamill read very early and he just thinks that he’s blown it. It’s amazing that, thank God, you’ve got somebody like Fred Roos sitting in the room who’s like, “You remember the kid you saw early on? You might want to talk with him again.”

  MARK HAMILL

  When I was auditioning, I thought, “Are we doing a Mel Brooks–ian send-up of Flash Gordon?” So I tested with Harrison Ford and I thought to myself, “This is like Buck Rogers and Harrison is Buck and I’m his kid sidekick.” I didn’t even know the story was actually from Luke’s point of view.

  GEORGE LUCAS

  Mark Hamill was young, fun-loving, slightly naïve, and very enthusiastic. He was just like the character he plays.

  MARK HAMILL

  I was doing the scene where I discovered the robots. I said my lines very big, very dramatic. George came over and went over the lines with me. He didn’t give me the readings, but as he explained the intention of the scene, he was very low-key. I just watched him. I don’t know why, but something in me told me to observe how he was speaking, to try to pick up his inflection. I even imitated a few of his gestures as he explained to me what he wanted me to do. At one point I thought to myself that he was doing it so small. That can’t be right. I thought I’d try it very small and he would see that it didn’t work. He would tell me to go back to the way I was doing it before.

  So when I played the scene, I did it just like I thought George would react in the scene. When I did it like that, George called, “Cut. Print.” I was flabbergasted. I thought, “Oh, I see. Of course, that was right. Luke is George. Even the names are similar, Luke-Lucas.” From then on, I followed through on my feelings. I began to really feel like I was playing George. I guess if you sit down and write an adventure like this, you have to think of yourself as the main character. I actually think Star Wars is the adventure of George Lucas.

  BRIAN JAY JONES

  When you watch those audition tapes and even in interviews he does today, Mark Hamill can still recite the tec
hnobabble that Lucas gave him; he can still recite that dialogue he was given to this day and it’s dialogue that wasn’t even used in the movie ultimately. But it’s like Lucas gave them what seems like the goofiest stuff to use as their sides on this, and he must’ve known what he was doing, because it obviously worked. But when you watch them, and you watch Carrie trying to do some of her stuff, it’s like every line’s a mouthful. Maybe he was doing that intentionally, almost like Harrison Ford said, “If you can say this shit, you’ll be fine.”

  MARK HAMILL

  When you went in, you didn’t get a script; they just wanted to get a feel for who you were. I noticed there were guys that were sort of teenagers like me, and there were some middle-aged men, so they were looking at Hans and Lukes. After I passed that part, where I just talked to George, who was looking at actors with Brian De Palma, then I got the script scene in the mail and I memorized that and did a screen test on videotape with Harrison. Again, with very little knowledge. Reading the script was amazing, because even though it was a combination of so many different kinds of iconic movies—pirate movies, cowboy movies, and all of those things—it was so original. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. People don’t realize that when they say, “Oh, it must have been such a shock when you saw the finished film, because you don’t see the special effects and all that.” It was always on the page. It was a stretch and it was funny.

  * * *

  Ever the man with the swagger, Harrison Ford seemed destined for stardom. Though it wasn’t an easy road to get there. Born on July 14, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, Ford had a fairly traditional upbringing, with his time in the Boy Scouts of America later being an influence in the opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As a senior in high school, he took an acting class to, as he later claimed, get over his shyness. In 1964, Ford moved to Hollywood to pursue acting, eventually being put on a $150-per-week contract with Columbia Pictures as part of their new talent program. Ford obtained small roles in film and television for the next decade, but found it difficult to break into the starring roles. Not happy with the roles being offered to him, Ford became a self-taught professional carpenter to support his then wife and two young sons.

  Ford would eventually take the small role of Bob Falfa in George Lucas’s smash-hit American Graffiti, which would prove to be the turning point in his career. In 1975, Lucas hired Ford to read lines in the casting session for Star Wars, with little notion of hiring the actor for a role in the movie. However, after hundreds of line-readings, with Ford bringing his characteristic charm, Lucas could not see any other actor playing the role of Han Solo.

  Ford’s everyman quality, combined with larger-than-life charisma, quickly found a home in the public heart. Ford would go on to star in almost as recognizable roles of Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard, and Jack Ryan, as well as successful stand-alone features in Air Force One, Witness, and The Fugitive, among many others.

  JOHN L. FLYNN

  Han Solo was first introduced in the initial screenplay as a huge, green-skinned monster with gills and no nose, and only later developed into a human. Lucas probably saw Solo as an amalgamation of all the great sidekicks in literature and film, from Lancelot in the Arthurian legends to Tonto in popular culture, but he eventually evolved into a fully realized leading player. By the second screenplay, Han had been transformed into a burly individual resembling Francis Ford Coppola. Though somewhat comic in appearance with flamboyant clothes and a guinea-pig girlfriend, he was clearly a person to be reckoned with. Lucas later made him a cynical smuggler and thought of him like a James Dean, “a cowboy in a starship: simple, sentimental and cocksure.” That persona stuck to Han Solo in the first film, but he gradually emerged as a sexy Clark Gable in the subsequent films.

  BRIAN JAY JONES

  I’ve never seen Christopher Walken’s Han Solo audition, but it’s one of those stories that I’m almost nervous about bringing up, because it’s one of those things that’s almost too good to be true. But you have enough people who were in his circle at the time who talked about seeing it. But why hasn’t footage come out after all this time? You’d think they’d be like, “Just release that one. It’s a novelty act.” I would love to see Christopher Walken doing Han Solo.

  What’s really interesting is when you watch Harrison in his takes, you can see that this is a guy who was brought in to sit there and read lines with people and they weren’t necessarily going to use them. He looks like he does not need this shit. At the same time, that’s the moment where everyone’s like, “This is the guy you need, because this is Han Solo; he doesn’t need this shit.” Because he’s very relaxed, he’s very nonchalant on this. Every line that gets delivered, he’s basically rolling his eyes at the other characters. I mean, it’s perfect. Again, largely Fred Roos can claim responsibility for that. Harrison has got this very casual and cool cowboy read to his lines and it’s perfect. All these years later he’s finally lightened up and accepted, “You know what? You are Han Solo. It’s going to be the first line of your epitaph, dude, so get used to it.” There is a line in The Force Awakens when Han Solo says, “The Jedi, the Force, it’s true. All of it.” I can’t even say that line without choking up. It’s fantastic and he’s perfect at it, and when I’m watching it, it’s the scene where you go, “There’s Harrison Ford’s moment of acceptance.”

  * * *

  Peter Cushing was already known the world over for his genre work in Hammer horror films, and playing the roles of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Who in both cinema and television, but it would prove to be the relatively small role of the evil Grand Moff Tarkin for which he would be best remembered. Born in Surrey, England, on May 26, 1913, to a quantity surveyor and a daughter of a carpet merchant, Cushing was not destined to be a successful actor. However, the viewing of a stage production of Peter Pan during a Christmas season of his youth instilled in him the fantastical possibilities of acting—a dream he would never let go of. While in school, Cushing would often skip class to help build sets for school play productions, something he would continue to do for years after as he worked a dead-end job as a surveyor’s assistant. It wasn’t until 1935 that Cushing pursued an acting career full time, appearing in several small parts and working as a stagehand for the Southampton Rep.

  In 1939, Cushing left for Hollywood with only £50 to his name. He obtained his first role as an on-screen stand-in for 1939’s The Man in the Iron Mask, playing opposite the lead actor, before shooting the same scene again from the opposite position, and then compositing the two takes together to give the appearance of the lead actor playing two roles. Cushing did not receive credit. Cushing’s first major role came as the second male lead in the 1940 Carole Lombard vehicle The Vigil of Night.

  He returned to England during World War II and found work on the screen and stage there for several years. Work was hard to find following the war, but Cushing finally gained critical praise in the role of Mr. Darcy in a 1952 television production of Pride and Prejudice for the BBC and in 1954’s controversial production of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Following this, he came to notoriety for starring in a number of low-budget horror movies by Hammer Films. His first outing in the starring role of Victor Frankenstein, in The Curse of Frankenstein, was such an overnight success that Hammer Films contracted Cushing to star in a series of low-budget horror films, adapting classic works such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and possibly his favorite role of Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles. By 1975, Cushing’s career was peaking, as he received an offer to star as the villain in a science fiction/fantasy film titled Star Wars.

  PETER CUSHING

  (actor, “Grand Moff Tarkin”)

  Over the years, I’ve played very few evil and sinister parts. Baron Frankenstein, however ruthless he may be, isn’t evil—but Grand Moff Tarkin certainly is. If I remember correctly, I have a scene in which I convince Princess Leia to divulge some information to me, in return for which I’ll spare a “planetoid” or something on which some of the rebel arm
y is hiding. Now you know what’s coming. She gives me the information … and I turn calmly and have the planet blown up. Now that’s a bad guy. I don’t play too many of them. But on those rare occasions I play one, I don’t try to find some way to get out of playing him as the villain he is.

  The challenge in that scene was trying to keep the audience from guessing whether I would keep my promise to the Princess, or have the rebels annihilated. It’s only a few seconds, but the least wrong move, just a slight change of expression, really, and the audience can catch on. Star Wars was made on two levels, really—for audiences who had grown up on the old Saturday matinee serials, and children for whom it was an entirely new experience. But that alone wasn’t the key to its success. It was brilliantly made. George Lucas and all the wonderful technicians who helped him create the illusion really knew what they were doing.