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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Our guest is actor Mark Hamill. He's in the new movie The Life of Chuck, directed by Mike Flanagan, who adapted the movie from a Stephen King story.

Hamill spoke with Fresh Air's managing producer Sam Brigger. Here's Sam.

You might be surprised to hear that a movie, with Stephen King and Mike Flanagan's names attached to it, is not a horror movie.

Flanagan's best known for horror films, and Stephen King is, well, Stephen King.

If it is horror, the life of Chuck is of the existential kind, asking questions like, are the length of our

lives predetermined by supernatural forces? Does fate control us? Are we actually the product of

someone else's imagination? Mark Hamill plays Chuck's grandfather, Albie, a hard-drinking accountant,

a kind man, but haunted by his secrets. When you hear Mark Hamill's name, it's hard

not to think of an epic story that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,

as Hamill played one of the most iconic heroes in movie history, Luke Skywalker in the

1977 film Star Wars, a movie that changed Hollywood and the larger culture. Hamill was Luke in the

original trilogy and reprised the role in the last trilogy that began in 2015. Hamill's other big

recurring role, one that he had for three decades, was as a villain. He was the Joker in Batman

the animated series, part of his long career as a voice actor.

He said he would stop doing the voice of the Joker, though, when the actor who played Batman, Kevin Conroy, died in 2022.

This is not the first time Hamill has worked with the director of The Life of Chuck.

He also appeared in Mike Flanagan's Netflix horror series, The Fall of the House of Usher, as a lawyer and fixer named Arthur Pym. Let's start with a clip from The Life of Chuck. Here Alby is going over his grandson Chuck's math homework. Chuck lives with him since his parents died in a car accident. Chuck's good at math, but his passion is dancing, and Alby's about to give him some tough love.

Some math, math that's called statistics or probability.

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