Mark Hamill’s new film is probably going to make you cry, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it.
“It’s tears of joy because it reaffirms your belief in mankind,” Hamill explains in a sit-down interview with TODAY.com.
The movie? “The Life of Chuck.” It’s the latest project for the “Star Wars” actor, who plays Albie Krantz, the wise grandfather of Charles “Chuck” Krantz. Chuck is a man whose life is chronicled in reverse by four different actors: Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay and Tom Hiddleston, who portrays Chuck as an adult.
Based on Stephen King’s 2020 novella of the same name, it’s a serious departure from the writer’s typical horror genre, although Hamill says it’s still got a few of King’s signature trademarks, including supernatural and apocalyptic elements.
“It’s certainly nothing like Stephen King has ever written before,” says Hamill. “He’s done ‘Green Mile’ and ‘The Body,’ which became ‘Stand By Me,’ but even by those standards, this is unlike anything he’s done.”
Also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mia Sara and Karen Gillan, Hamill says “The Life of Chuck” is “indescribable” but so profound โ and good โ that he asked if he could “go out on the talk shows” to encourage viewers to “please see it. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”
If audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, he doesn’t have to worry. After premiering at the festival, the film took home the People’s Choice Award and has since garnered rave reviews by many critics, some of whom called the film one of the year’s best.
“It’s so positive. It’s so optimistic about life,” Hamill tells TODAY.com. “It also teaches you there are moments that, in life, you think are trivial that collectively become very important.”
And if “The Life of Chuck” leaves people in tears, Hamill says it’s because a movie “this original” only “comes along once in a lifetime.”
“I just loved it,” he says. “It’s wonderful.”
‘The Long Walk’
“The Life of Chuck” isn’t Hamill’s only collaboration with King. The actor also appears in the upcoming film “The Long Walk,” a horror movie based on King’s 1979 novel of the same name (published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), starring Ben Wang, Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Judy Greer, among others.
“The premise is just ghastly,” he says of the film. “It is more in the mold of what you associate Stephen King with.”
Less of a supernatural movie and more straight-up horror, “The Long Walk” takes place in a dystopian future and revolves around a group of young men who are chosen, a la “The Hunger Games,” to participate in a walk that only ends when everyone dies, except for a single, indomitable winner.
“The rules are simple: You walk until only one is alive,” explains Hamill, saying that if walkers lag behind, fall to their knees or deviate from the walk in any way, it’s “a bullet to the head.”
Based on its grim premise, Hamill says his initial reaction to the role was, “Not only can I not be in this, I don’t think I can see it.”
But given that Francis Lawrence, the iconic director of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay” Parts 1 and 2, along with other notable films including the sci-fi classic “I Am Legend,” was at the helm of “The Long Walk,” Hamill says he reconsidered.
“I really admire him as a director,” he explains, saying that after a call with Lawrence he changed his mind. “By the end of the Zoom call, I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to do it.’ And my boys, of course, read it and said, ‘Dad, this is great. You’ve got to do it.'”
Hamill plays a military major, or as he puts it, “a badass guy,” but says the true stars of the movie are the young actors he worked with, calling them the “heart and soul” of the movie.
“I was so impressed. These are all the young actors you’re going to see in the future.”
‘I Owe the World to Mike Flanagan’
As for his own future, Hamill says he’s loving “every minute” of his career right now and hopes to work on more projects with Mike Flanagan, the director and screenwriter of “The Life of Chuck.” Flanagan also created such notable series as “The Haunting of Hill House,” “Midnight Mass” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” in which Hamill played Arthur Pym, a shadowy figure known as the “Pym Reaper.”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been asked to play something so far from myself on camera,” he says of the role. “Because I was playing a sociopathic, soulless, evil lawyer.”
Having done voice work for decades, Hamill says it’s a role that would have been routine if he had done it as a voice-over, but he is grateful to Flanagan for giving him the opportunity to do such a “juicy” role in front of the camera.
“I owe the world to Mike Flanagan. That’s why I’m so loyal to him. That’s why I jumped at ‘The Life of Chuck,'” he says, continuing, “He’s just wonderful.”
As for what’s next, Hamill says he’s got yet another, undisclosed project in the works with Flanagan, but for the moment remains firmly focused on ensuring that audiences come out to see “The Life of Chuck.”
“You realize that human beings are inherently good,” he says of the film’s takeaway. “And in this atmosphere of division and anger and uncertainty, it’s exactly the right movie at exactly the right time.”
