Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker (with Yoda in the 1980 Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back)
Photo: Anonymous/ AP
Mark Hamill and Luke Skywalker are inseparable.
Hamill played the Jedi Master-in-training in the Star Wars films, becoming the face of the first trilogy.
But what would have happened if the American hadn't become an actor at all?
He might still have fought against dark forces - with a pen and notebook instead of a lightsaber.
Hamill worked for the Associated Press (AP) in Los Angeles before breaking into acting and could have pursued a career as a journalist.
Mark Hamill (2018)
Photo: Jordan Strauss/ AP
The now 70-year-old Hamill told this story – somewhat out of necessity – on Twitter.
Journalist Dan Sewell had revealed (almost correctly) Hamill's backstory there.
Former AP Los Angeles bureau chief John Brewer recalled a struggling actor who worked as an assistant on the night shifts in the 1970s.
But in 1975, Brewer said he'd been cast in a "sci-fi movie."
"And so ended Mark Hamill's AP career," Sewell wrote.
But Hamill had something to correct: Yes, he worked at the AP at the time and yes, he had to end his AP career because he was cast.
But the film was not a sci-fi production.
So certainly not »Star Wars«.
He was cast in an episode of the television series The Partridge Family and left AP as a result, Hamill said.
But: "I like Mr. Brewer's version much better."
He understood little about journalism when he started out at AP.
He only knew the profession from the comedy »The Front Page« and Superman comics.
"I pictured myself bursting into the editor's office and yelling, 'Stop the presses, boss!'"
Then things turned out differently.
When »Star Wars« first hit the cinemas in May 1977, Hamill made the world breakthrough as Luke Skywalker.
There he then fought with Darth Vader instead of his editor, hung out on the Death Star and not in the editorial office.
Wouldn't he have preferred to become a journalist?
Surprisingly, Hamill wrote nothing about this.
ptz