You might be surprised that Mark Hamill was genuinely worried when he was pretending to be hit by lightning at the end of Return of the Jedi. However, when you learn why, it makes sense.
In February 1984, Cox News Service spoke to Mark Hamill about his time working on the Star Wars trilogy. When interviewed, Hamill was starring as the lead in the hit Broadway play Amadeus which, later that year, would be a hit movie directed by Milos Forman. In a cruel twist, Forman denied Hamill a chance to play the lead in his movie because he didn’t want the guy known as Luke Skywalker to be Mozart. Maybe Hamill should’ve told him that he had starred in a Broadway show in the lead role that was previously played by David Bowie.
Although Amadeus was mentioned in the short article, it mostly featured Hamill telling a story about when he filmed Luke Skywalker’s near-death scene at the end of Jedi.
In the movie, the Emperor showcases his Sith powers by shooting lightning out of his fingers, showering Skywalker with bolts of Force-created electricity. this is the full power of the dark side on display as the Emperor tells Skywalker he will die.
Filming the scene was not even remotely dangerous because – and I know this is shocking – no actual lightning was used for the scene. What?! So, flexing all his acting skills, Hamill just had to pretend to be in excruciating pain… but then he felt the presence of another.
Hamill explained, “I was supposed to react in pain and fall down and we were just about ready to go when I see him and I’m thinking, ‘This isn’t good.’”
The “him” that Hamill is referring to was his 3-year-old son, Nathan. Apparently, his wife and son arrived just as Mark was about to roll around the floor and pretend to be in extreme agony.
Hamill added, “I can’t move and go over and tell him to leave. So then all these things are going off and it’s real ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ time.”
Hamill acted out being endlessly struck by Force-lightning while thinking about how his son must be horrified at the sight. When it was over, Hamill quickly looked over at Nathan to see if he had utterly frightened him. “When they said, ‘Cut,’ I looked over,” Hamill states, “and Nathan had this big grin on his face and he said, ‘Do it again, daddy.’”
Now that’s a cool kid. No surprise he’s a Hamill. In fact, Nathan later appeared in multiple Star Wars films. Maybe the fun he had on set that day was a sign of things to come.
Mark went on to say that his son’s a big Star Wars fan which for many reasons, including familial ones, is no real surprise. One wonders if Nathan encouraged his dad to continue re-enacting the scene at home. Hamill only noted that when his son watched the film that “it really works for him.”
