Mark Hamill landed his The Long Walk role thanks to the Star Wars sequels, Francis Lawrence reveals

28 August 2025

Mark Hamill landed his role in The Long Walk thanks to the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Mark Hamill landed his role in The Long Walk thanks to the Star Wars sequels

The 73-year-old actor stars as the villain known as The Major in the upcoming thriller, and director Francis Lawrence has now revealed that it was Hamill’s portrayal as a disgruntled Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars sequels that helped him get the part.

Speaking with Screen Rant, the 54-year-old filmmaker said: “I was putting a lot of thought into the role of, and I was trying to stay away from the archetype that one might think of … Look, he’s a great actor and a great military consultant, but I was trying to stay away from the Dale Dyes of the world – like in Platoon, and you’ve seen him in Spielberg movies and all that stuff.

“I was trying to come up with somebody different, and then I thought of Mark, I think because of his work in the more recent Star Wars movies.

“There was a sort of weariness to him that I really liked for The Major, and he had a gravitas that I really liked.

“I also knew that he had done a ton of amazing voice work, so he had this real command over the kind of characters that he could play and the way he could sound.”

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire director added Hamill “totally got” the role after being pitched it, mostly thanks to having spent his teenage years living in Japan, where his school was next to a U.S. military base.

Lawrence continued: “We had a Zoom, and it was great because I told him these things. He totally got it, but he had also moved around as a kid on military bases, so he was like, ‘I know this guy!’

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