Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, shared a Star Wars behind-the-scenes video on his Twitter page showing himself and his co-stars getting into on-set mischief. Hamill joked about the cast “behaving like total brats,” and teasing director George Lucas as soon as the camera stopped rolling. As if the original Star Wars trilogy wasn’t beloved enough, this video shows just how much fun the actors had while working on what would become one of the greatest cultural touchstones in the history of cinema.
The video looks to be from the set of Star Wars: A New Hope, as Luke, Hans, Leia, and Chewbacca escape the Death Star, with the actors running through the set, blasters in hand. Once “cut” is yelled, the actors immediately start getting at Lucas, obnoxiously asking “and? and? and? and?” until Lucas lets them know that the mic was in the frame. They tease the director, making out that the issue was entirely his fault. We can see that he is taking it all in good jest, laughing along with his cast and crew as they return to first positions to shoot again. Hamill says in his tweet, “our goofiness always seemed to cheer him up.”
Working on films can be long and exhausting, with early call times, a hundred things to pay attention to and, of course, getting a good clean shot! So it is always fun for fans to see workers in productions having fun on set, enjoying themselves and getting along. The original poster of the video, @bigbadzane, wrote “We need more Star Wars BTS like this!! Absolute gold!” Some fans complied with the request by posting behind-the-scenes videos from other parts of the film.
This one shows Hamill handling a snake on the set of The Empire Strikes Back:
This video shows Carrie Fisher and Hamill discussing their next shot as they appear to be relaxing against Jabba the Hutt.
Here, Hamill, Fisher and Harrison Ford go over their lines in Return of the Jedi, as Ford seems to dangle uncomfortably from the pike he has been strapped to by Ewoks.
Ford doesn’t seem to have his lines fully down in this rehearsal, and jokingly berates the behind-the-scenes camera operator for filming him messing up.
It looks like it was certainly a fun set to work on, and it’s so much fun to see the original cast working together on a project that would launch them all into the annals of cinema history.