Watch Mark Hamill cringe though his original Star Wars audition

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 04: Mark Hamill attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 04: Mark Hamill attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

Omaze is partnering with Mark Hamill to fly two lucky people out to Los Angeles, put them up in a four-star hotel, and give them tickets to see the world premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. And also they’ll get to have dinner with Hamill himself, who will no doubt blow their minds with all sorts of Star Wars stories.

In fact, he can start now. To promote the sweepstakes, Omaze sat Hamill down and had him watch his original Star Wars audition, where he read for the part of Luke Skywalker (or “Luke Starkiller,” at the time) alongside Harrison Ford as Han (or was it Hans?) Solo. Check it out:

Okay, I’m sure bigger Star Wars fans than me weren’t surprised, but I did not know a lot of these factoids. The original title for Star Wars was The Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken from The Saga of the Wills? Had that title remained it’s anyone’s guess whether the franchise would actually have taken off.

In the early script, the droids were just called robots, and it was a good call to cut the line, “She knows the art of mind control.” And I love how Hamill assumed he would be playing the sidekick to Ford’s leading man. “I thought he was Captain America and I was Bucky.”

Also, that’s a solid George Lucas impression.

As for the Rise of Skywalker premiere, you have until midnight on December 1 to enter. Any donations go to the USC McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI), a comprehensive pre-college program designed to prepare students from South and East Los Angeles for admission to college or university.

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h/t The A.V. Club