Exclusive Portraits: Mark Hamill at Chicago Fan Expo, Aug 16, 2024

Submitted by PatrickMcD on August 17, 2024 - 9:52pm

CHICAGO – The force was with the Chicago Fan Expo on August 16th … what the heck else can be said? Mark Hamill is making a rare appearance and fan meet/greet all this weekend at the Expo, which runs until Sunday, August 18th. Photographer Joe Arce was at his live panel event and captured two Exclusive Portraits.

Mark Richard Hamill was born in Oakland, one of seven siblings. His father William was a naval officer and the family moved often, but Hamill eventually landed at Los Angeles College, where he studied drama. He began in television in the 1970s, making appearances on “General Hospital,” the original pilot of “Eight is Enough.” “The Partridge Family,” and “One Day at a Time.” And in the age of the high-quality TV movie, he had a role opposite Linda Blair in “Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.”

Mark Hamill at Chicago Fan Expo, August 16, 2024
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

It was his friend Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund who tipped Hamill on the Luke Skywalker audition, although his agent had already set it up. The rest is movie legend. The first “Star Wars” film (1977, AKA “A New Hope”) was sensationally successful, and Hamill would reprise his role in two direct sequels. In 2015 he revisited the character in the reboot film “The Force Awakens” and two more films in that series, as well as using his VoiceOver talent as different characters in several “Star Wars” spin-offs, and appearing as a technologically de-aged Luke in “The Madalorian.”

Somewhat typecast after his Skywalker breakthrough, Hamill tenaciously pursued film (“The Big Red One,” “Corvette Summer.”), Broadway stage (“The Elephant Man,” “Amadeus,” “The Nerd”) and especially VoiceOver in animation, most notably as The Joker on “Batman: The Animated Series” and other series (including the film adaptation of “The Killing Joke”). Hamill, a comic book geek, went on to voice characters in both the Marvel and DC animated universes. He also expanded to film animation and video game voice roles, and has achieved as high a fame and regard in VO talent as his Skywalker role.

At his showcase panel at the Chicago Fan Expo on Friday, August 16th, he spoke and answered questions for a packed house. HollywoodChicago.com photographer Joe Arce capture these Exclusive Portraits at the event.

Mark Hamill Reacts During His Live Panel at the Fan Expo
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

FAN EXPO Chicago runs through Sunday, August 18th, 2024, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention, 5555 North River Road, Rosemont (Illinois). For complete information (including tickets), click FanExpoHQ.com/FanExpoChicago. Source for this article was from Wikipedia.com.