An Interview With Mark Hammil

Animation World Magazine, issue 2.1, April 1997, Music and Sound Design for Animation
Posted In

In 1993, Mark provided voices for such TV series as SwatKats, Cowboys at Moo Mesa, Secret Squirrel, Bonkers, The Little Mermaid (two episodes), and the Flintstones special Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby. While continuing to work in movies and television, Hamill entered into a new type of voice-over work, the CD-ROM game. His debut in this arena was Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father, a minor release, in 1994. Mark followed this by providing voice-overs for such super-hero TV shows as The Amazing Spider-Man (Hobgoblin), The Fantastic Four (Maximus), The Hulk (The Gargoyle). The following yr, he provided voices for The Magic Flute and Phantom 2040 videos.

In late 1994, one of Mark's most ambitious and successful works following Star Wars and Batman was the Wing Commander CD-ROM trilogy, for which he provided the voice of Colonel Christopher Blair. Wing Commander III eventually became one of the top selling 'live-action' computer that were filmed using CGI-generated sets, while the actors performed in front of green screens. Wing Commander proved to be so successful that the USA Network commissioned 13 episodes of an animated series with Mark. LucasArts then called upon Mark in 1995 to do the voice of Ben, who is framed for murder in the Full Throttle CD-ROM game.

Hamill's voice-over career continued in 1996 when he was cast as Harris opposite Bruce Willis in Bruno the Kid, which he felt was a personal milestone in his career. "For Bruno, I was hired as what they call a 'utility player,' which means they could rely on me to provide more than one voice--I was actually hired to play three voices. Getting to the point that I was trusted to provide more than one voice actually took me over four years of work, but I got there." Mark also revisited The Hulk to revive The Gargoyle in two episodes, as well as The Joker in a Gryphon Software's The Adventures of Batman and Robin Activity Center.

Projects Mark is currently working include working with various Saturday Night Live alumni Jim Belushi, Shellie Berman, Lorraine Newman, Don Novello and a large cast of others, including the likes of Peter Aykroyd, Nell Carter and Taj Mahal, for the UPN's The Animated Blues Brothers, where he taking on several roles. Mark also provided the voice of Threshold for the Gen 13, based on the ultra-popular Image comic book.

Web Voices
His popularity in the computer world is such that he now has his own fan-created site (http://www.markhamill.com), and has been a guest on numerous live celebrity chats on America Online. This past March, he provided his vocal talents to the Sci-Fi Channel's Dominion Web site's Seeing Ear Theater, reading adaptations of Franz Kafka's The Country Doctor and an original story, Into the Sun.

Also on Mark's plate is the opportunity to direct a movie, co-written with cousin Eric Johnson, about a super-hero vigilante, The Black Pearl. Originally done as a screenplay, it was picked up by Dark Horse Comics, and Mark and Eric set adapted it themselves to the comic book page. Now, they have just finished reworking the comic book back into a screenplay and there is rumor of interest from several studios.












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