WASHINGTON – November 24, 2015 — (UPI) — Mark Hamill has confirmed his return as Luke Skywalker in the eighth upcoming Star Wars film, scheduled for 2017.
The 64-year-old actor, who appears on TV series The Flash as The Trickster, replied to a fan’s inquiry about his beard on Twitter, revealing it’s ready for his big-screen reprisal as the aged Skywalker.
“How’s the #contractuallyobligatedfacialhair coming along?” one Twitter user asked the famed actor.
“Last shaved 10/22 after final day of my 2nd #TheFlash…just in time for Ep VIII-whew!” Hamill wrote back.
Netizens took Hamill’s tweet as a sure confirmation of his survival of the events of the Star Wars franchise’s seventh installment, The Force Awakens. Before then, it was unclear if he would play any significant part in either the seventh or eighth films.
Hamill’s return to both films is now listed on his IMDB page.
Hamill returns to Force Awakens alongside Carrie Fisher, who played his twin sister Princess Leia in the original films. Fisher returns as General Leia in Ep. VII, saying she’s “long ago” accepted the fact she will always be associated with her famed on-screen Star Wars character.
“I have that as a large part of the association with my identity,” she said to Time magazine. “There wasn’t a lot of hesitation [to return to the movie].”
Speaking of her character in Force Awakens, she expresses Leia has gotten “so much older. I tried to stop her, but apparently that includes death so that didn’t seem like a good solution. Along with aging comes life experience so in every way that is consistent with even being human, Leia has changed.”
Fisher and Hamill, along with Han Solo actor Harrison Ford, were spotted together in London ahead of the production’s start date in April of last year. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is set to hit theaters Dec. 18.
