Mark Hamill: Knightfall is “Game of Thrones without the dragons”

Star Wars legend Mark Hamill is moving on from that galaxy far, far away and taking up a role that’s much closer to home: Hamill will play Talus, a grizzled Templar Master, in the second season of History’s Knightfall. Talus will train Tom Cullen’s Landry du Lauzon as he seeks redemption for the sin of sleeping with the King Philip IV of France’s wife, Queen Joan (Olivia Ross).

Speaking to Den of Geek, Hamill explained how he landed the gig. “They sent over a couple of screeners. I’d never heard of this show, but don’t go by me. My kids always say, ‘You’ve never heard of that?!’ For me, at my age, a day spent in your pajamas is a win, puttering around the garden with your dogs and telling kids to get off your lawn.”

"I started watching this thing, and I was riveted. It just transports you into another time and another place. I’d seen Camelot and the sort of movies you see on Turner Classic Movies. This was just so gritty and harrowing, really, to think of a time when the mortality rate was so high. Old age was considered 40. After about 20 minutes, I thought, “Oh no – I have to do this.” I don’t get offered things like this, historical dramas with a British cast!"

I’m not sure what he saw in Knightfall that made him think he had to take the role, but okay. I thought the show was hot garbage sure to get canceled, but I’ve never blown up the Death Star so what do I know?

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“You look for things that challenge you,” Hamill said, “that push you out of your comfort zone, and this one certainly does that, because he’s not really a likable character. He’s abrasive and hard-edged and gritty, and I was flattered that they would think of me for that.” Or they saw his abrasive performance in The Last Jedi, whichever.

Comparisons between Luke and Talus started popping up online, but Hamill doesn’t really see the connection. “That didn’t even occur to me until I said yes! Then everyone on the internet was saying, oh, he’s doing a knight again. Obviously, George Lucas had so many influences, and certainly, knights were something he modeled his characters after.”

"When I first read the script for Star Wars, I thought, oh my gosh, this is like a Western, a WWII movie, it’s swashbuckling, it’s like pirate movies. It’s all these genres mixed up so that everything old is new again. He was definitely influenced by that sense of purpose and valor and doing the right thing for a great cause, there’s no question about it. Other than that, I don’t see a lot of similarities between Luke and Talus."

So what sets Talus apart from Luke? “He’s training all these initiates to become Templar knights. He’s brutal. He’s a true believer. I say at one point, ‘You are being trained to become executioners for Christ,’ which is an oxymoron. There’s all that sort of conflict in trying to figure out who that person is.”

That sounds a lot like Luke Skywalker to me. The whole reason Luke exiled himself in the first place was because he started a new Jedi Academy that was eventually destroyed by his nephew Ben Solo (Kylo Ren). Then he became a grumpy hermit and trained Rey. Talus might as well swing a lightsaber around. He’s definitely a Luke type.

Hamill, who is used to intricate wardrobes from the Star Wars films, says playing a Templar Knight was even more of a sartorial adventure. “The first time it really hit me how involved this would be was at the first wardrobe fitting, where it just kept coming and coming and coming, layers and shoulder pads and a belt and a sword and an axe and those boots…The dresser, poor woman, gets winded! Every time she puts them on, she has to take a little break. So yeah, there’s more than an hour in make-up every day. There’s three scars, a beard and a wig.”

Hamill also had to take horseback lessons for the show, as well as brush up on his medieval European history. “Both Tom Cullen and Simon Merrells, who play Landry and Tancrede, have done research. They gave me titles that they thought were the best to read. I did sort of a cursory thing – you know, you go on Wikipedia.’ It’s a fascinating time period. I’ll be questioning this or that, and both of those guys are really well read on the subject.”

All the studying aside, Hamill had a delightful way of describing the historical accuracy of Knightfall:

"I like to think of this as Game of Thrones without the dragons."

So how does Knightfall compare to Star Wars, in terms of violence? “I was sitting watching this with my wife, and there was a scene last season, where they’re about to perform a Caesarean section on the queen, and she goes, ‘Oh, please don’t show it on camera’, and I go, ‘Honey, it’s television, they’re not going to…oh my God, they showed it on camera!”

"It’s really graphic in its violence. I’m not squeamish, I know all the tricks. There’s a horrible wound, and I think, oh, good make-up job. So it’s hard for me to get shocked the way my wife does. But Tom and Simon and the directors are telling me that this season is more violent and darker. I think what happens is that, when you’re on cable, you’re competing with the networks, so you have to go where the networks can’t go."

Hamill also reflected on his time as Luke Skywalker, from the original trilogy to how it ended in The Last Jedi. “The thing is, Luke changed so much between the first trilogy and the last trilogy. I got myself into trouble. I made a vow – I said that I’m not going to talk about the movies anymore because I think it’s important for the audience to see them.”

"My problem was, I wasn’t dealing with social media back then, where you say something and it goes around the world in 24 hours! If I were to answer your questions on paper, I’d think: oh, that sounds a little strong, or, I shouldn’t say this. But I have a tendency just to talk and talk and talk, and you can cherrypick. You know, I’ll be reading something, and say, ‘What moron said this?’, and then realize, ‘Oh, it’s me.’ They can take selective comments you’ve made out of context and use it to support their argument: ‘See, Mark hated Star Wars!’ ‘Did I?’"

All that said, Hamill still opinions about Star Wars, and how Disney has handled the franchise. “In our day, [the movies released] three years apart. Now they’re two years apart, with an independent movie (Rogue One, Solo) in between. I say to the executives at Disney, ‘Really? Han Solo five months after our movie? Give it a rest!’ They say, ‘Well, we have to keep the schedule clear for Mary Poppins.’ He feigns outrage. ‘But I can be mouthy, because you know, what are they gonna do, fire me?”

Well, Luke did die at the end of The Last Jedi, but we know he’s somehow involved in Episode IX. After that, though, we’ll probably be through with the Skywalker saga. So, yes, mouth off to Disney all you want, Mark Hamill, we support you.

On cue, Hamill had some thoughts about how Han died in The Force Awakens:

"I just thought, Luke’s never going to see his best friend again. You look at it in a self-centered way. I said that it was a big mistake that those three people would never reunite in any way. I guess I was wrong, because nobody seems to care! I have to stipulate that I care, but it didn’t really seem to affect the larger audience. Luke, Han and Leia will never be together again, and I’ll probably never get to work with Harrison again. Then the second thing was that they killed me off. I thought: oh, okay, you should push my death off to the last one. That’s what I was hoping when I came back: no cameos and a run-of-the-trilogy contract. Did I get any of those things? Because as far as I’m concerned, the end of VII is really the beginning of VIII. I got one movie! They totally hornswoggled (tricked) me."

We’ll see who’s hornswoggling who when Episode IX hits theaters in December. Knightfall season 2 debuts on History on March 25.

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