One of the theories I promised to explore when I started this blog was that the reason Mark Hamill's career didn't take off like Harrison Ford's did post-Star Wars was simply that he wasn't a very good actor. To be honest, I'm having a tough time assessing that.
Corvette Summer, as I mentioned earlier, isn't exactly an optimal showcase for anyone's acting skills. And I'm sure many of my generation will understand that I simply can't evaluate Luke Skywalker objectively. Even if I were able to shake off the associations from the 70s, I've simply seen the first block of Star Wars movies too often to see them with any kind of objectivity at this point.
Hamill does seem to have garnered respect as a voice actor, something I'll delve into further in another post. And there's an element of irony in that, given that his Star Wars "big break" was almost certainly attributable (at least in part) to his boyish good looks. That's always been my assumption, and it was reinforced for me when I watched this video of Hamill's Star Wars audition.
I'm very curious to hear others' reactions to this audition tape. My own response was a resounding, "eh." It wasn't bad, but literally nothing about it stood out to me. Though the idea of anyone other than Mark Hamill portraying Luke Skywalker seems unthinkable today, I'd really love to get a look at some of the other audition tapes for that part.
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