trivia
- Mark is a huge fan of comic
books.
- He collects comic books, model
kits and
cereal boxes ("I'm a cereal fanatic, but I'm not going
to pay $700 for
a Snagglepuss Cocoa Krispies box").
- From early on in Mark's career,
he has
given time and talent to work with various charitable
organisations.
Many of them are directly related to children or issues
concerning them.
- Mark worked for free on
"Britannia
Hospital" (1982).
- He admires the works of Stan
Laurel, Alfred
Hitchcock and Ray Harryhausen.
- Though in the "Star Wars"
trilogy he shoots
a pistol and swings a light saber right-handed, he eats
and writes
left-handed.
- He did all his own stunts in
"The Empire
Strikes Back" (1980), except in the scene in Cloud city
where he is
sucked out of a window.
- He also did all his own stunts
in "Return
of the Jedi" (1983), except two places: where "Luke
Skywalker" jumps
off the plank into the Sarlaac, turns, and flips back
onto the plank
and on the Death Star when Vader throws his saber at the
supports of
the catwalk.
- For months, Mark was literally
the only
human actor on call for the scenes on Dagobah in "The
Empire Strikes
Back". He had to act with a puppet, a robot, and an
assortment of
lizards and snakes (one of which bit him).
- He kept his Luke Skywalker
boots, from the
first "Star Wars" movie. When the movie was re-released
to theaters in
the late 1990s, his son asked if he could wear the boots
to a showing.
Mark said no, telling him he didn't think the boy would
"get out
alive" if fans knew his boots were the originals.
- He also kept the Stormtrooper
helmet he
wore in the first "Star Wars" movie.
quotes
- "You know how there are some
stars out
there
who know how to market themselves? I don't have that."
- "I never saw myself so much as
an actor. I
wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles M. Schulz and
create my own
world and be able to have a studio at home and not
commute and be able
to be with my family. I just didn't have the skills to
pull that off
and so I've gravitated toward theater because I like all
of it."
- "You know where [the pride]
comes from?
It's
not so much from the industry ... but the 9-year-old kid
who looks at
you like a cross between Superman and Santa Claus. And
you'd have to be
a really, really hardened cynic not to be moved by that.
Not only that,
but just doing the interviews for this animation series,
I can't tell
you how many people have said, 'I got into the business
because of that
movie.' ... I totally understand that because I remember
walking out of
'Jason and the Argonauts' (1963) and saying, 'I don't
know how they got
those skeletons to fight, but someday I want that to be
my job. To make
skeletons fight.'"
- "I have a sneaking suspicion
that if there
were a way to make movies without actors, George (Lucas)
would do it."
- "If I were to talk to George
Lucas -
and I will - I'd say to him, 'One of the greatest
advantages that the
earlier pictures had, which the new picture [The Phantom
Menace] did
not have, was a voice of skepticism. We had someone in
there going,
"The
Force, are you kidding me? I'm just here for the money."
...
Everybody's so
serious. I mean, sheesh! Lighten up!"
- "You don't want to be some
pathetic
old guy shuffling around in his slippers going, 'Yeah, I
used to have
The
Force. The Force was with me, dang it!'" [on watching
the prequels]