In an interview that touches on the negative side of AI (‘Terrible, ghastly, ghoulish…and weird’), his latest film The Life of Chuck and his broader Star Wars legacy, Mark Hamill looks back to 1978 when he was told arguably the greatest twist in movie history, that he was in fact the son of Darth Vader, and the pressure immediately laid on his young shoulders by George Lucas and The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner.
While filming “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1978, director Irvin Kershner pulled the actor aside with news of a script change.
“’I’m going to tell you something. I know it. George Lucas knows it, and when I tell you, you’ll know it,’” Hamill recalls Kershner saying. “So, if it leaks, we’ll know it’s you.”
The original script had Darth Vader telling Luke Skywalker that Obi-Wan Kenobi killed his father. But Kershner revealed the new line: “I am your father.”
“The hard part was I had to keep that secret for over a year and a half,” Hamill says. He kept it so well that Harrison Ford, sitting in front of him at the premiere screening, turned around and said, “You didn’t even tell me.”
