Star Wars: After the Original Trilogy, Luke Skywalker Skips Oscar Role

After two commercial failures, his musicals Hair and Ragtime, director Milos Forman returned to success with the overwhelming triumph of his masterpiece Amadeus. Adapted from the play by Anthony Shaffer and supposed to take place in Vienna, the film was shot in Prague. One of the first Hollywood productions to come to Czechoslovakia, the country of the filmmaker’s birth.

In this deadly rivalry between two composers that pulls everything apart, Forman has entrusted the roles, respectively, to two lesser-known talents: Tom Hulse, who will give the role of his life as the whimsical Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (and will be nominated for an Oscar), and F. Murray Abraham, who won an Oscar for his fabulous portrayal of the Italian composer Antonio Salieri, admires but also envies Mozart.

But did you know that Amadeus’ translator could be completely different? And not anyone! Luke Skywalker himself: Mark Hamill.

After a very successful run at the Royal National Theater in London in 1979, Anthony Shaffer’s play opened on Broadway in late 1980. Starring: Ian McKellen as Salieri, with Tim Curry as Amadeus.

The play was a huge success, with over 1,000 performances over three years. The actors playing the characters sometimes changed. This is how Mark Hamill replaced Tim Carr in the role. Fortunately, there are photos of its embodiment!

It was at this time that the project of adapting the play into a film was developed. While Dustin Hoffman was campaigning to reprise the role of Salieri, Mark Hamill was hoping to reprise his role as Amadeus in a film that Forman was producing.

The actress met the filmmaker even before the casting search officially began. Hamill tells us this story in an interview Irish TimesIn 2017:

“I played Amadeus on Broadway. When Miloš Forman wanted to do a movie version, he asked me to come and rehearse with the actors who were auditioning for Mozart’s wife. I said, “Sure.” Because I’m a big fan. Miloš Forman’s fan. So take turns I practiced with different actors. But after a few hours I asked him: “Milo, do you know that I played Mozart? He laughs, “No one will believe that Luke Skywalker is Mozart.”

We can clearly imagine the actor’s disappointment with Forman’s response, even if Hamill later clarified that he appreciated the filmmaker’s honesty, however brutal; And he did not get a role for which he wanted a lesser-known actor from the beginning.