While he's mainly focused on voiceover roles these days, Mark Hamill says he's not opposed to taking on interesting and atypical roles that motivate him in a way he "wouldn't have imagined."
"The older you get, the less you care. So, I wasn't being dramatic like, 'Oh, I'm gonna retire," Hamill explains to GamesRadar+. "I said to my agent, I'll keep doing voiceover, but I just don't relish the idea of going off on location and leaving my family. Because [with] voiceover, they're four-hour sessions. You might have two on one day, but then you go home to your wife and your dogs, and you sleep in your own bed. All I was saying is I'm at a point where I don't have the fire in my belly anymore."
The actor previously revealed at San Diego Comic Con that he was planning on retiring from live-action projects back in 2019, but an offer to star in Mike Flanagan's The Fall of the House of Usher for Netflix revived his interest. Hamill was then cast in The Life of Chuck, a Stephen King adaptation helmed once again by Flanagan.
The story is quite the departure from King and Flanagan's usual horror steeze, as it's more of an emotional drama that chronicles the life of man who dies from cancer – telling the story in reverse. Hamill played Chuck's grandfather Albie. From there, he was asked by director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollne to star in another King adaptation – this time, the first-ever feature-length adaptation of The Long Walk.
"I'm not on the phone to my agent saying, I gotta be in a Marvel movie. I don't care. And what happened was, they offered me The Wild Robot, and I love animation. That's in my wheelhouse," Hamill continued. "That, I got to sleep in my own bed. Same with The King of Kings, which came out in Easter. But then, Life of Chuck, I'd worked with Mike on The Fall of the House of Usher. And I was assuming between Mike's reputation and Stephen King, this is gonna be the all-time supernatural horror epic of all time, and I couldn't believe how atypical it was for both of them. And unlike anything I've ever done or been a part of, I said, 'Oh, I definitely have to do this.' That's no biggie."
Based on the first novel King ever wrote (which was released much later under his Richard Bachman pseudonym), The Long Walk stars Cooper Hoffman as a young man named Ray Garraty who enlists in an unconventional contest with fatal consequences. The rules are simple: walk or die. Hamill plays the Major, the fascist military leader of what's left of the United States who runs the contest every year. One hundred young men enter, and only one makes it out alive. The cast includes David Jonsson, Tut Nyot, Garrett Wareing, Ben Wang, Joshua Odjick, Charlie Plummer, and Judy Greer.
"With The Long Walk, that was done in Canada. It's such a beautiful country. And in a way, it works because you're isolated. You're away from home. You're really much more committed to the material at hand because you're not dealing with your books and your toys and your TV set and all this stuff you have at home. I mean, it's more of a commitment to be far away. And I realized if they're offering me, like, interesting things like this, they're motivating me in a way I wouldn't have imagined if I were on my own."
The Long Walk is set to hit theaters on September 12, 2025. For more, read our The Long Walk review or check out our guide to all the upcoming Stephen King movies and shows you need to know about.
