The financial Force is strong with Ireland!
While it’s great to see Mark Hamill being formally honoured at the Oscar Wilde Awards, we’re firmly of the belief that the Star Wars legend has always been an honorary Irishman. Luke Skywalker-himself was the guest of honour at the pre-Oscar bash and he was incredibly happy to talk about his time in Ireland.
Of course, we’ve seen Hamill pulling pints, professing his love for the Irish language, Tayto, the people and making the dreams of this teenager cancer patient in Derry come true, but the main reason why he came to Ireland was to work and in The Last Jedi, his performance was superb throughout.
This being said, the actor fully deserved his ‘honourary Irish citizenship’ because away from the cameras, he consistently showed what a kind and decent man he is.
As is the norm, Star Wars director J.J. Abrams hosted the Oscar Wilde Awards – a celebration of the cinematic contributions from Irish and Irish-American artists – and during his speech, Hamill spoke about how much money Star Wars will bring to the Irish economy.
In typical self-deprecating humour, he said: “You know you’re in trouble when the introduction is more entertaining than my prepared remarks. This is a great honour! Honorary Irishman J.J Abrams, by deciding to make The Force Awakens in Ireland, just from that movie and not including The Last Jedi, the Irish Tourism Board are projecting that it will bring 4 billion to the Irish economy. Not to mention countless Star Wars nerds making it a go to destination spot to visit Skellig Michael, Dingle and Derry and spend their tourist dollars there.”
Of course, Hamill has been in the news recently after a little back-and-forth with the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn, on Twitter.
Could we be seeing him in the MCU?
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/967919700272340992
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/967991001347272706
Speaking about any potential role in Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3, he said: “I don’t know. Its one of those things that can only happen on Twitter! We just exchanged information and said let’s do it sometime.”
We’re definitely on board for that!
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