A Classic Monster Movie Inspired Mark Hamill To Become An Actor
by Kieran Fisher · /FilmLong before the world knew Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" franchise, he was just a kid who dreamed of making motion pictures. However, there was one movie in particular that made young Hamill decide he was going to become an actor, and he hasn't looked back since.
In an interview with Letterboxd, Hamill recalled the original 1933 "King Kong," co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, being the film that lit the acting spark in his imagination. The black-and-white adventure follows a film crew who travel to an uncharted island and encounter a giant ape and other prehistoric creatures, which, surprisingly, paves the way for one of the most unlikely love stories ever told. Forget about romance, though, as it was the monsters that left a young Hamill feeling awestruck. As he told it:
"That [film] captured me as a little kid and said, 'I wanna be in a business where they make dinosaurs come to life.'"
Now that we know about Hamill's love for prehistoric monsters, we can forgive him for lending his talents to 2004's "Wolf Tracer's Dinosaur Island" — far from his finest hour. On a more positive note, though, watching Cooper and Schoedsack's jungle adventure gave Hamill hope about his prospects of working in the film industry.
King Kong opened Mark Hamill's eyes to the movie business
"King Kong" wasn't the first great giant monster movie about prehistoric creatures (shout out to 1925's "The Lost World"), but it's undoubtedly one of the most everlastingly influential. Part of the reason for that is Willis H. O'Brien's creature effects and stop-motion animation, which helped Mark Hamill realize there was more to making movies than acting. As he recalled in an interview with StarWars.com:
"The black-and-white 'King Kong' I just loved as a kid. I read 'Famous Monsters' and learned about stop-frame animation and so forth. So when I saw there's the camera crew, there's the construction people who build the sets, there's wardrobe, gosh, there's even caterers, I thought, 'If I can't be in the show, at least I can be near the show.'"
Hamill has since gone on to star in lots of great roles, but it sounds like he'd have been involved in the film business even if he hadn't. Be that as it may, his love for the Eighth Wonder of the World has informed some of his acting work, as he sang about the ape's downstairs region in the Qiubi series "Royalties." That's almost as good as starring in a "Kong" movie, right?