20 pieces of trivia you need to know about Star Wars
Mark Hamill hit his head on Yoda’s hut 16 times
We’ve heard lots about injuries on the Star Wars set over the years, not least the saga regarding Harrison Ford, a mechanical door and his subsequent broken ankle on the set of The Force Awakens. Director J.J. Abrams hurt his back trying to help — the galaxy is a dangerous place.
But that didn’t stop Mark Hamill from doing all his own stunts, with the exception of being sucked out of a Cloud City window in Empire Strikes Back. According to IMDb, these stunts included having to bang his head no less than 16 times on the ceiling of Yoda’s hut before director Irvin Kershner was happy. As Yoda would say, “Patience you must have, my young padawan!”
Hamill reportedly butted heads with Kershner a few times, telling Uproxx that “Kershner was much more of an actor’s director, and we were both very headstrong and opinionated.”
Hamill took to Twitter only in November to express his displeasure with Kershner’s decision to have Luke kill the Wampa. Hamill believed this was out of character for Luke, who, as we all know, is the smallest, kindest bean in the entire galaxy.
Hamill did however add in his interview with Uproxx that he loved Kershner and “I think he appreciated the fact that I was opinionated and engaged, because that’s the relationship of a director and an actor, to collaborate like that.”
He similarly said he disagreed with The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson on Luke’s arc in the film, but has since said that it wasn’t distaste so much as not understanding the version of Luke that Johnson had written.
“A lot’s happened… I mean, Kylo Ren, besides picking the next Hitler to be the new hope, that’s on me, but there had to be more, even to justify cutting off my telepathic communication with my sister,” he told SXSW in March, as reported by AV Club. “But that’s my job.”
It all worked out well in the end though, as Hamill continued: “I’m sorry I lowered my guard and expressed my misgivings about it because that belongs in the process. That doesn’t belong to the public. And I made that statement before I saw the finished film… and I just think it’s a stunning film.”
Divisive, it may be, but Hamill’s right — it’s definitely stunning.