Mark Hamill Was A Total 'Flanafan' Before Joining The Fall Of The House Of Usher
Mike Flanagan, the filmmaker behind Netflix horror shows like "The Haunting of Hill House," "Midnight Mass," and the recently released "The Fall of the House of Usher," has a stable of actors he uses over and over again. Folks like Carla Gugino, Kate Sigel, Rahul Kohli, Henry Thomas, and more. It's fun to see these actors pop up again and again in Flanagan's work, and it is just as fun when he adds a new player to the mix. One such new player is none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. In "House of Usher," Hamill plays Arthur Pym, attorney and fixer to the infamous Usher family.
Hamill is clearly having a lot of fun with the role, adopting a gruff voice and playing the morally dubious Pym as a weird little guy. Hamill fits in perfectly with Flanagan's usual ensemble, and he makes the most of his limited screen time by chewing the scenery and making Pym a memorable, creepy guy who stalks around doing nefarious things for the corrupt Usher family. And it apparently wasn't a difficult task to convince Hamill to appear on the show, as the actor admitted to Netflix that he's a "self-proclaimed Flanafan."
'Well, I'd want to watch this'
According to Hamill, it was his wife who encouraged him to take the part after he got the scripts. "I remember after finishing Episode 2, I said, 'Oh, my God!' [And] my wife saying, 'You've got to do this.' I said, 'You're not even going to watch this!' She doesn't like horror films very much." But it helped that the actor was already a fan of Mike Flanagan's work. As Hamill put it:
"I am an unabashed fan of The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and, by the time they approached me for this, I'd also seen Midnight Mass, which was a great departure. The first two were sort of linked in that they're in the world of ghosts. But with Midnight Mass, he went full horror, and I just loved all three of them," shared Hamill. "So, at first, I thought, 'Well, I'd want to watch this.'"
Hamill also added that he was "flattered" to be added to Flanagan's cast of actors, stating: "There's nothing better than a big ensemble cast with a bunch of talented actors. They up your game."
While I was a little mixed on "The Fall of the House of Usher," I thought Hamill was a standout. I genuinely hope that he becomes part of Flanagan's usual crew now and that the filmmaker brings him back for more work in the future (that future will not involve Netflix, though; Flanagan and his partner Trevor Macy are leaving the streaming giant for Amazon). I also hope Hamill gets to play a weird little guy again, because he's very good at it.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is now streaming on Netflix.