Star Wars star Mark Hamill has a massive fanbase thanks to his highly lucrative role as Luke Skywalker in the series. His fanbase grew even larger thanks to all of his voice work, mainly as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and various Batman video games. As much of a celebrity that Mark Hamill, it turns out that he is part of a fanbase of another celebrity... David Letterman.
The comedian and former host of The Late Show with David Letterman may be under some scrutiny nowadays (although, who isn't?) but that doesn't deny his colossal impact on the late-night television industry. But even before David Letterman became mainstream, Mark Hamill was obsessed... And by 'obsessed'... we mean... 'OBSESSED'. Here's the truth about Mark Hamill's relationship with David Letterman.
Falling In Love With Letterman As A Comedian
In an interview with UPROXX, Mark Hamill went into detail about his obsession with the late-night talk show host. Of course, Mark was a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman numerous times. He even predicted Star Wars: Episode 7 decades before it came out while being interviewed by David. But Mark's love for David Letterman began when he was just a stand-up comedian.
"When I [first] saw Letterman, I liked him from the beginning," Mark Hamill told the interviewer at UPROXX. "He had a sense of irony and attitude that reminded me of other comedians I liked a lot. He seemed to, like Johnny Carson, have this secret weapon of not being able to bomb because he would make flatter moments funny by commenting on them. Other comedians do that too, but something about Letterman I thought was just gold."
It was on David Letterman's short-lived NBC morning show in 1980 that Mark was really introduced to what he believed was the genius of the future late-night talkshow host.
"I said, 'This is the next wave of comedy.' It harkened back to Steve Allen, who I loved as a kid, who would go out into the street and do observational humor that was so clever. And I thought, 'This is really odd' because this show is so wrong for morning TV, but I can’t get enough of it. And of course, it was canceled. I was really depressed. I have this feeling that things that I love too much are destined to be canceled. I don’t get over it very easily"
Becoming Obsessed With David Letterman
When David Letterman was given a new show, Late Night, in 1982, Mark's love for him grew exponentially. He even started to tape all of his shows, most of which he had to watch after they aired as he was starting to film The Return of the Jedi. This meant that Mark's assistants and housesitters had to do the taping for him and log all of their entries so Mark could watch them in order upon his return.
By 1983, Mark had his first sit down with David Letterman to promote Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. While Mark tried to make conversation with David off the air and express his deep appreciation for him, David was distant with him. Of course, anyone who knows anything about David Letterman knows that he is and always has been extremely reclusive.
"He’s very much to himself, which is fine with me," Mark explained. "I sometimes don’t like meeting people that … I like the people that I watch to be, you know, the people that I watch. Sometimes you meet people, and they’re disappointing or they’re not what you think they are or they give you a dimension that alters your perception of them when you watch them as performers."
Even though David wasn't as open to friendship with Mark when they first met, the Star Wars star continued to tape all of his shows. Yes, even as Mark became one of the biggest celebrities n the world thanks to the release of the final Star Wars movie in the original trilogy, he was still fanboying over David Letterman. He would even make his own 'best of David Letterman' tapes by editing some of the recordings from his interviews into compilations.
Eventually, producers at Late Night found out about Mark's collection of tapes. Mark gave them access to the tapes so that they could log information and even make copies.
Mark continued his taping of David Letterman shows when he was gifted The Late Show With David Letterman on CBS in the early 1990s. Eventually, Mark admitted to himself that he had a problem...
"I was doing a play out of town at the Coconut Grove [Playhouse] in Florida. It was a pre-Broadway play so it was a tryout [in 2003]. The rehearsals were intensive. I would go home exhausted and pretty much straight to bed, and get up and go to the rehearsal the next day. And so I looked at myself and looked at these boxes of tapes, and it really sort of illustrated how this obsession got out of hand. I remember the exact day I decided, 'Not only am I going to stop with this David Letterman obsession, but I’m not going to watch any more talk shows ever again.'"
From that day on, Mark has stayed away from watching talk shows. His obsession was just too out of hand. As for the boxes of VHS tapes, well, Mark still has them in the basement of one of his homes.
Over the course of David Letterman's career in late-night, Mark Hamill made numerous appearances. Despite his adoration for the comic, Mark never became close with him. However, the two always had a great report on screen and seemed to like each other.