Thanks to playing the legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker, actor Mark Hamill doesn’t really need to audition much in order to snag roles nowadays. On top of being one of the main characters in the original Star Wars trilogy, Hamill has also made a name for himself as a talented voice actor and his turn as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series is revered among the most hardcore Batman fans. But back in 1976, Hamill was just another struggling actor, and there’s tape to prove it.

In collaboration with the charity campaign organization Omaze, Mark Hamill sat down to watch his original Star Wars audition tape from 1976. In the tape, he reads lines and does a bit of improvisation with Harrison Ford, and he can’t help but be embarrassed by his performance. Not only does he cringe at the clunky dialogue, but he can’t help but cower in the shadow of coolness that was Harrison Ford, who somehow outshines Hamill despite barely being on camera. Watch as Mark Hamill reacts to his Star Wars audition below!

Mark Hamill Reacts to His Star Wars Audition

Mark Hamill has always been humble about his work as an actor, and that’s even more true when he looks back over 42 years to one of his earliest and most famous roles. Immediately he jokes that his biggest contribution to the character of Luke Skywalker was that floppy Beatles-style hair that could only come from the 1970s. But fans would certainly argue that he would bring so much more to that performance throughout the entirety of the Star Wars saga.

Perhaps the best part of this retrospective look back at this audition tape is Hamill recalling a moment when he stopped to ask George Lucas if what there were doing was a parody of Flash Gordon. The director’s response was, “Well, let’s just shoot it and we’ll talk about it later,” which is so typical of the man that fans would come to know.

Lucas always seemed like a fly by the seat of his pants kind of filmmaker, and if you need anymore evidence of that, Hamill remembers that his response to questions about how to pronounce things like Chewbacca was, “Say it how you want to say it; it will be regional.” It’s like he simultaneously knew everything, but also didn’t care if anyone else understood.

If you’d like to spend some more time with Mark Hamill, you can enter Omaze’s charity campaign for a chance to go to dinner with the actor and attend the premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with him.

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