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While actor Mark Hamill will forever be remembered for his star-making role in George Lucas’ Star Wars and its sequels, animation fans also love him for his impressive body of work as a voice actor in close to 300 animated shows, movies and games over the past few decades. From his iconic performances as The Joker in Warner Bros.’ acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond and Justice League and many other projects, to guest voices on iconic TV shows such as The Simpsons, Futurama, SpongeBob SquarePants, Regular Show and Invincible to English dubs of Miyazaki movies such as Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and the Oscar-winning The Boy and the Heron and last year’s The Wild Robot (as Thorn the bear), Hamill has been an always reliable and memorable voice acting powerhouse in the world of animation.
The talented actor was generous enough to chat with us for a bit about his latest project, as the voice of the despotic King Herod in Angel Studios’ new animated feature The King of Kings, which opens in theaters today (Friday, April 11). Here is what the Emmy-winning actor and three-time Annie nominee shared with us:
Animation Magazine: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us about your latest animated role. Can you tell us how you became involved with The King of Kings, which is a new animated take on the story of Jesus Christ, as seen through a little-known story by Charles Dickens?
Mark Hamill: First of all, I have to tell you that I’m a big fan of Animation Magazine. As a kid, I used to watch the Walt Disney shows on TV [Walt Disney Presents, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color]. That was the only place where you could find out about the process of animation and how they created these movies frame by frame. You’d see the camera process, the wardrobe people, that was a revelation to me especially for someone like me who was secretly plotting to get into show business. That was really an education for me.
When it comes to this project, King Herod must be one of the more celebrated villains in history. He is completely lacking in empathy and almost enjoys the cruelty when he issues the edict to slaughter all males under the age of two. He is really a textbook model of a of a villain, but villains don’t really think of themselves as villains. I remember seeing King of Kings with Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus in the early 1960s, which was a huge epic. I think it was over three hours long and I loved every minute of it. Then when I was in college, I saw the 1927 silent version of the movie directed by Cecil B. DeMille with HB Warner as Jesus I was and still am fascinated with silent films and how they deal with the limitations of not having spoken dialog in them.
But you know what? Never in a million years, would I be cast as King Herod if this were a live-action movie. I’m just physically wrong for it, but I’m lucky that they cast these projects with their ears and not their eyes. Our casting director Jamie Thomason, who also wrote the script for the movie, offered me the part, and I have a long history with him. At the time, I didn’t know that the story of Jesus was told through the perspective of Charles Dickens sharing the story with his young son. His son Walter is enamored with King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table, so our story is framed in a way that makes it really accessible to young children. Because Walter is six, seven years old, he becomes part of the story as he observes it with his own eyes in real time. I thought that was a very smart approach and makes the movie enormously appealing to kids.
What was your reaction when you saw the final version of the movie?
I just watched it yesterday and it was such a knockout. I think they hit it out of the ballpark. With animation, they were able to make it feel like a real epic, with 10,000 people on screen. The music, the production design, the art direction, everything about was great. I had no idea… I mean look at this voice cast, are you kidding me? Kenneth Branagh, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Oscar Isaac, Uma Thurman. I’m the only one I haven’t heard of!
One of the very cool things about your career is that you have something like 300 credits in animated shows, movies and games. What are some of the favorite characters that you’ve played in animation?
You have sort of a soft spot for The Joker, because by doing it successfully, it was a revelation to voiceover people. “That Mark Hamill? You gotta be kidding me!” So, it opened a whole world of character parts that would that were unavailable to me until they heard me as that character. I went to Broadway because I wanted to play character parts. So from the late ’70s to the early ’90s, I did Broadway. When I came back, I remember reading about Batman: The Animated Series. I knew by the caliber of people they were putting together for this show — people like Bruce Timm and Paul Dini — that this wasn’t going to be like the Saturday morning Super Friends’ Batman.
So, I told my agent, “I really want to play a villain on this show.” I wasn’t really thinking of The Joker—I was considering characters like Two-Face, Ra’s al Ghul or Clayface. There were so many villains that hadn’t been done on the Adam West TV show, which I loved as a kid. This was happening right after the big hullabaloo that happened when the fans reacted negatively to the news that Michael Keaton was cast as Batman. They just couldn’t get their minds around of him as Batman because they saw him as comedic actor in Mr. Mom, blah, blah blah, without even seeing an inch of footage. So I was getting ready to audition thinking to myself, wait a second, how will the fans feel about Luke Skywalker playing one of the most iconic villains in comic book history: They’re going to lose their minds.
So, I thought there’s no way I can get this part. They say never go in for a part with a sense of neediness. I thought they just wouldn’t cast me, so I had no performance anxiety and with the attitude that I was just going to do the best I can. I’ll just make them really sorry that they don’t hire me. There was only one little black-and-white drawing of him, and the only note on the top of the audition copy was “Don’t think Nicholson!” I thought well, I can’t do Jack Nicholson anyway, so I had a great time, and just let it rip. Let them just try and find someone who can top that! They’re really going to be sorry they didn’t hire me! Of course that confidence was immediately dispelled when my agent called and said I got the part!
I remember driving to the first recording session warming up in the car and laughing maniacally. Of course, in Los Angeles, a person laughing manically alone in their car is just another Tuesday! When I got to the studio, I told our voice director Andrea Romano, “Listen, I can’t remember what I did for the test!” She said, “Relax! We have your audition tape!” She played the tape and I did calm down and went ‘Oh yeah!’
That was an important turning point in my career because once you do something well in Los Angeles, they want you to do it over and over and over again. That’s why I immediately got typecast as a megalomaniacal villain. I wasn’t getting offered the heroes anymore: I was now being auditioned for all these other villains. That was tricky because I remember doing Hobgoblin for the 1990s Spider-man series, and at first I laughed in a higher range. I thought oh no, that’s too Joker-y. So I made this decision to make his laughs more guttural. The main thing is to try and make everything true to what’s in the script and not fall back into the same thing that you’ve done before!
Oh, rats. We have so many questions for you, but they’re telling me our time is up! I know you are going to be in the new SpongeBob SquarePants movie (The Search for SquarePants) this December. Can you tell us more about what to expect?
Yes, I’ll be voicing The Flying Dutchman again in that movie. Let me tell you: Being invited to come and visit Bikini Bottom is like someone paying you to go on all the rides in an amusement. I can’t believe how much fun this is. Tom Kenny and I and his wife Jill Talley have been friends of my wife and I for decades. They’re two of the most talented and wonderful people I know. Tom is so much fun to work, and I mean he is SpongeBob. I don’t know what they would have done if they hadn’t found him. He just embodies that sort of guileless, innocent and cheerful character in every situation. So yes, it has been a busy year for me, The Wild Robot came out last year, now we have The King of Kings, the live-action move The Life of Chuck (which won the Best Audience Prize at Toronto) in June, The Long Walk (a new Stephen King adaptation) in June, and The SpongeBob Movie will be released in December.
See, that’s what happens when you say I want to retire and don’t want to do this anymore. I just wanted to play in the backyard with my dog. I should have discovered that years ago because the minute I told people I’m done –especially after the Star Wars sequels. I’m dead: II died from an overdose of the Force. Who knew that was even a thing? So I thought that’s a good good-bye for me. Then Mike Flannagan casts me in The Fall of the House of Usher. That really turned my career around mainly because he thought outside the box. I mean who would think of me as a soulless amoral sociopath? So, I just can’t tell you how grateful I am to Mike and the producer Trevor Macy. That role made me want to perform again, because you don’t want to do the things that you’ve done before over and over again. It’s always great to be offered the challenge of playing a character unlike anything you’ve played before.
Angel Studios’ The King of Kings will be released in theaters on Friday, April 10. Directed by Seong-Ho Jang, the film features Mark Hamill as the voice of King Herod, Kenneth Branagh as Charles Dickens, Uma Thurman as Catherine Dickens, Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate, Forest Whitaker as Peter, Ben Kingsley as High Priest Caiaphas and Oscar Isaac as Jesus Christ.
As part of the promo for The King of Kings, Angel has announced a special “Kids Go Free” campaign that allows families to receive up to one free children’s ticket with the purchase of a qualifying adult ticket when they visit Angel.com/kidsgofree and using the code KIDSGOFREE.
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