I’ve sent a lot of interview requests over the years, which means I’ve also collected a fairly spectacular number of rejection emails. Most of them are deleted almost immediately, partly because there’s no real reason to keep a digital museum dedicated to people politely telling me no, and partly because I’m bitter. If I wanted to preserve that many memories of rejection, I’d still have Tinder.
There is, however, one rejection email that I’ve kept for nearly four years, and bizarrely, it remains one of my favourite emails I’ve ever received. Not because it contained a secret invitation to Elton John’s post-Oscars party, or because somebody accidentally attached Margot Robbie’s phone number to it. It’s simply because the person rejecting me was Mark Hamill himself.
A few years ago, I contacted Hamill’s team to ask whether he’d ever be interested in sitting down for an interview. I wasn’t exactly expecting a yes. This is Mark Hamill we’re talking about; he’s Luke bloody Skywalker. If anyone in Hollywood has earned the right to ignore an email from me, it’s probably the man who blew up the Death Star. What I definitely wasn’t expecting was to receive a response directly from Hamill himself, rather than from a publicist, manager or assistant.
“Thanks for thinking of me,” Hamill wrote, before explaining that he’d received countless interview requests and felt it would be unfair to choose one over all of the others, so had made the decision to politely decline them all. He ended the message by saying he knew I’d understand and wishing me “the best and continued success.” How am I supposed to be upset about that? The man rejected me so kindly that I somehow came away from the experience thinking, ‘What a lovely bloke.’
Most rejection emails have the ability to make you question whether you’ve chosen the right career, particularly when you’ve spent ages crafting a pitch only to receive a devastatingly efficient “Unfortunately, we will have to pass.” Hamill somehow achieved the opposite. Yes, technically, Luke Skywalker said no to me, but I’m choosing to focus on the much more important fact that Mark Hamill briefly knew I existed.
Is that actually what happened? Not really. Is that how I’ve chosen to remember it? Absolutely.
Mark Hamill Is Much More Than Luke Skywalker
Of course, receiving a personal rejection from Mark Hamill carries slightly more weight when you consider the extraordinary career behind the person pressing send. For generations of movie fans, he’ll forever be Luke Skywalker, one of the most recognisable heroes in cinema history and a character whose journey helped turn Star Wars from a strange little space fantasy into one of the biggest entertainment franchises the world has ever seen.
Hamill first played Luke in George Lucas’ original Star Wars in 1977, beginning the character as a restless farm boy staring towards the twin suns of Tatooine and dreaming of something bigger. By The Empire Strikes Back, Luke had become a Jedi apprentice discovering one of cinema’s most famous family secrets, before Return of the Jedi completed his transformation into the calm, powerful Jedi Knight willing to risk everything to save his father.
For decades, that trilogy alone would have been enough to cement Hamill’s place in film history, but his relationship with Luke Skywalker eventually became something even more unusual. More than 30 years after Return of the Jedi, he returned to the role for Disney’s sequel trilogy, appearing briefly in The Force Awakens before becoming a central figure in The Last Jedi. Whatever your feelings about the direction of the sequels, watching Hamill stand beneath those twin suns again carried an emotional weight that very few franchises could replicate.
His connection to the galaxy has continued beyond the films, too. Through a combination of performance and technology, a younger Luke appeared during one of the biggest moments in The Mandalorian, while Hamill has remained an enormously important figure within the wider Star Wars family. Few actors have ever been associated with a character for quite so long, and even fewer have managed to embrace that connection with the affection and humour that Hamill has.
The slightly ridiculous thing about his career, though, is that Luke Skywalker isn’t even his only genuinely iconic role. Hamill has spent decades building one of the most celebrated voice-acting careers in the business, most famously becoming the definitive voice of the Joker for an entire generation of DC fans. Beginning with Batman: The Animated Series, his wonderfully theatrical, increasingly unhinged performance opposite Kevin Conroy’s Batman became so beloved that Hamill returned to the character repeatedly across television, movies and video games.
That Joker laugh alone deserves its own IMDb page.
Hamill’s version could be playful, menacing or completely deranged depending on the scene, and his vocal performance helped demonstrate that voice acting was never simply about turning up and reading dialogue into a microphone. For plenty of fans, when they pick up a Batman comic and imagine the Joker speaking, it’s Hamill’s voice they hear.
Perhaps the reason people remain so affectionate towards him, however, is that there’s always seemed to be a human being underneath the legend. He’s funny, self-deprecating and clearly aware of the slightly surreal position he occupies in popular culture. The fact that one of the most recognisable actors on the planet personally took the time to politely explain why he couldn’t do an interview with some bloke called Dan certainly hasn’t done anything to change my opinion.
And, Mark, should you ever happen to stumble across this article: the invitation remains open. I promise I’m very good at handling rejection.
I’ve had practice.
Daisy Ridley Revealed Which Star Wars Women Deserve Their Own Spin-Offs
Thankfully, my attempts to interview residents of a galaxy far, far away haven’t all ended in rejection. I previously caught up with Daisy Ridley, who played Rey across the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and asked her which of the franchise’s badass female characters she’d most like to see receive their own Disney+ spin-off.
One of Ridley’s first choices was Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico. “Rose, ’cause I want to see what babes has been up to on the Resistance Base,” she told me. The answer felt particularly significant given the conversation surrounding Rose’s role in The Rise of Skywalker, where the character had considerably less screen time than she’d received after being introduced as one of the major new additions in The Last Jedi.
Ridley also singled out Naomi Ackie’s Jannah, another character whose relatively limited screen time left plenty of unanswered questions about where her story could go next. “We’ve got a lot to uncover,” Ridley said… And she’s not wrong. Jannah’s history as a former First Order stormtrooper who rebelled alongside the rest of her company provides more than enough material for another story, even before getting into the questions raised about her life following the Battle of Exegol.
The conversation highlighted one of the enormous opportunities Disney still has with the Star Wars universe. The films have introduced countless characters whose stories barely scratch the surface before the credits roll, while Disney+ has already shown that a supporting character can become the centre of an entirely new corner of the franchise. Rose and Jannah may have finished The Rise of Skywalker as supporting players, but there is absolutely nothing stopping either of them becoming the Luke Skywalker of their own adventure.
As for whether I’ll ever complete the set and finally interview Mark Hamill himself, I’m refusing to give up hope. He may have rejected me once, but he did it with such devastating politeness that I’ve somehow spent the last four years treating the email like a treasured piece of Star Wars memorabilia.
Forget owning an original lightsaber.
I’ve got an email from Luke Skywalker telling me no.
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