my first guest tonight burst into prominence in 1977 as luke skywalker currently he is in new
york city playing quite a different character mozart in the broadway production of amadeus
and we are more than happy to have him with us here tonight please welcome mr mark hamill mark
nice to see you thank you very much for uh being on the program and by the way i thought you were
terrific in uh return of the jedi thank you a very nice job there sir very much
let's uh uh talk a little bit about the part you're currently playing
i started uh thinking that i should get back to why i became an actor in the first place
because i did a lot of plays in high school and in college none of my family was in show
business uh what did they do what what did you find my father was in the navy i have a
brother who's a doctor who is considered the success of the family to this day oh i see
but you know i've done a lot of television and i've been working basically i'm 31 now i've been
basically working steadily since i was 17. and of course in 77 i became an overnight success
and discovered that people sort of forget really that the films were made for young
people george lucas wanted to make like the ultimate saturday matinee we never thought
we'd be reviewed by time magazine we just thought we'd be making a a real good popcorn movie yeah
uh and i i wasn't worried about typecasting or anything else that the journalists would ask me
and then i discovered that it's really true first of all there are not a lot of films being made uh
there are tremendous financial risks involved and the only way that you can really sort of
stay keep your finger in the pot so to speak is is come to new york come to new york do workshops
anybody can audition for plays if you can just make it in off the street they'll see you and that
wasn't always the case in california so i started auditioning for everything it didn't matter now
what was the reaction because this was after the success of the first movie so you're you're a big
deal uh now what was the reaction to the people that you were auditioning with when they said well
there was a guy here with mark hamill once there was a guy at the amadeus audition who was also
auditioning for mozart and he said what are you doing here where you got the film rights to the
play or something he said no no i'm just trying out like everybody else they're suspicious a
little bit huh suspicious yes they thought maybe i was some sort of entrepreneur or something but
uh i don't know i auditioned for and i sort of got myself into a situation that i couldn't extricate
myself from i wasn't really relishing the idea i did it with the national tour with john wood and
michelle seiler for six months in fact they're they're at the fisher theater in detroit now so
if anyone's in the michigan area charter a bus sell the family pet and get out and see the show
it's a wonderful production the national tour but uh you know i was auditioning for sir peter hall
and i mean fortunately he had no idea who i was but i mean i was still terrified but i knew i had
the element of surprise going for me because you know people when they see a special effects movie
like that and they know it's not real they just can't imagine that you're really doing anything
you know because they know it's it's magic of some sort but i auditioned for him and i wound up being
offered the role and i thought i'd never be able to live with myself if i said hey you know what
i turned down amadeus and they'd say yeah sure so yesterday i gave my 213th performance so now
i know what it's like to do a long run yeah yeah well now this this guy um mr mozart uh he uh from
what i know of this he was kind of a uh uh he was uh twisted a little he was a little he was a child
prodigy who never really grew up and uh he was the first freelance musician in the sense that
you had to have a commission to be able to write music in those days and really it's mostly based
on the fact that peter shaffer was a musical critic for the london times and he came across
these letters that were really scatological and content and real earthy humor and uh letters
from uh letters to his cousin bosley to his wife constanza but the whole family lie was like that
they were otherwise like that the father was like that they were from a provincial town salzburg
which was sort of like a joke to people in vienna and uh i think he was his own worst enemy
he always spoke his own mind but the contrast the real spark for the play is how could this man who
wrote this incredibly pure music be someone who could jump up on furniture and imitate animals and
goose people and drink wine and do kind of you know because they've always painted him as this
porcelain figure i first heard about it when paul schofield was doing it at the national and
i figured paul schofield was playing mozart i had no idea i mean i really didn't have a
background in classical music but uh it's really wonderful for me to play a character that's not
really likable especially in act one and since i'm playing to a lot of out-of-towners now because
most of new yorkers have seen amadeus they're still shocked i can't believe it sometimes because
it's fairly tame but since they're in 18th century garb well it's more shocking in all honesty the
stuff that i heard the this afternoon and we were discussing was uh i would be shocked by it well uh
unfortunately we can't we can't tell people what's so shocking about it but you're gonna come
here it's just it's just ugly beyond your wildest imagination mark campbell is is here uh you
mentioned a name that i didn't recognize when you mention it and let's point out who that was
i've never heard of him he's the he's the founder of the royal shakespeare company and he was at
the national theater in london the chances of me ever working with him are so negligible i
thought there's i better take this or i'll never get the chance they do bring a lot of english
cast to america but it's not really reciprocal i don't think they let americans go to england
very much but uh uh he's a biggie yeah so but also too he had no idea of i mean he he has never seen
star wars this guy is not going to star wars no he's like the guy who refuses to see e.t oh yeah
but i think he's pretty busy you know so yeah uh let me ask you about the story of people
camping out on your front yard in california although maybe we don't want to talk about
that because you don't want to encourage that well i mean it's the thing is it's like
people that talk about the merchandising or anything else it's it's supply and demand it's
like any maybe pop group or or a hit television series it is supply and demand if kids want to
bring lunch boxes with that particular thing on it uh i i it amuses me actually
because uh i mean look at how quaint some of the like the beatles bubble bath looks
these days it'll probably be just collector's items in another 10 years but what about the uh
uh in addition to the uh it's it's it's the band they have another job during this time every night
they're uh uh i thought that was a rim shot i didn't say anything no no no no we wouldn't do
that uh but you know what i'm talking about yeah you're you have a home suddenly the movie comes
out you're a major star and you got people living on your yard well it was yeah and also they'd look
through the window so you'd find yourself going to change channels on the tv on your hands and knees
he said this is no way to live no that's not good this is no way to live so i moved
and you know but didn't you at one point actually uh kind of deputize these folks
well i thought i better get them on my side you know don't alienate them so i'd go out and
sign secret packs where they wouldn't reveal the whereabouts of my secret abode and actually have
them house sit when i would leave and pick up my mail you know yeah throw out all the leftovers in
the fridge that we're getting people like that are generally pretty responsible so you want to
put them in charge of your property better an ally than a yeah an enemy by the way the
cast at the broadhurst said bribe david go on and shamelessly uh so this is from the
cast at the broadhurst and they thought you'd like a t-shirt i do like t-shirts well there
you go i'll i'll wear this with a great deal of pride thank you very much mark it's awfully nice
thank you sir uh now you don't have to see the play no no i'd go see this play in a minute not
i mean you don't they don't pass these out at the door anyway no no no um tell me about the before
you got into a full-time uh acting in stardom and so forth you had other jobs yeah i did you know
i was a janitor i worked in an ice cream store i worked at associated which ice cream store
uh yeah well it's closed now called will rights it was in southern california well right so i'm
not familiar with it it folded soon after i worked there good ice cream very good ice cream yeah okay
and after that you worked for i worked for associated press for about 30 minutes i thought
i was i mean i thought it was like the front page you know i wanted to be like ben hecht and charles
mccarthy with a hat and a press card you know i had delusions of being jimmy olsen or something
instead i was sweeping out the stock room and cutting copy and it was very frustrating i finally
went i thought it was funny at the time i how old were you then 17. just a kid a punk
mr punk
but i went in i thought this was amusing i thought at least to get the attention of of the
city editor and i i kicked the door open and i said stop the press's chief i got a
story that'll set this town right on its ear he looked up from the desk and said get out
and so i did but what i didn't realize because i came back to work the next day and there was
a pink slip in my box he meant like get out of the building out of my life yeah totally out of
the hemisphere gone gone history right uh now what are you gonna do when the uh the uh play closes or
when you leave it i you know what what is your like you were talking about the probably not
going to be another star wars and would you do one if there was going to be another one well george
is very very tired he's spoken sort of obliquely about a third trilogy which won't be until like
2011 and as proud as i am to have a job lined up at the turn of the century i mean i can't really
relate to it uh uh i so i i for all you know intents and purposes i just figure well that's it
and i feel very lucky to have been able to do it i know it's not a great showcase for actors but i
mean i'm just starting out i should be grateful and i have a feeling that going on some of the
talk shows like when i was on tom snyder i just came off sort of bitter and i don't feel that way
really i had a real good time doing the movies uh but i'd like to try other things i'd love to meet
a writer or director that would like to sort of take that image whatever image i have and
sort of mangle it for the american pub but you do which is why i did lindsey anderson's film i
didn't get paid for it it was just a chance to i mean there were directors that i would work for
without reading a script or or anything just this was the third in the series of uh the name of the
film oh well the britannia hospital i haven't seen it i'm probably in it for like 30 seconds
but the idea was i should show people that i'm not i'm mostly interested in a good role not so much
in the money well you make a good point that this is just the beginning of a career actors
and i love doing comedy i'm a tremendous fan of of the monty python people and albert brooks and
well you and a lot of them now you don't need to say that kind of stuff no i mean
you gave me the shirt mark let's let's don't push our luck here no you're okay but uh is that bad no
that's fine that's perfect no but the thing is too i mean you want to show people that you are
are courageous that you want to take chances that you don't want to just if i if i didn't
feel serious about my career i would just take the money and run and retire
because you know george was very generous he cut us in on the profits and if we spend it carefully
we probably won't have to work again for a long time listen uh i hate to cut you off here but
we're running a little bit late and you gotta go perform anyway tonight it was a pleasure
meeting you mark thanks for being here mr mark hamill ladies and gentlemen we'll be right back
you