There is so much secrecy surrounding the next “Star Wars” movie that even Luke Skywalker himself isn’t allowed to keep the script for more than a day.
Mark Hamill, who plays the iconic Jedi in the sci-fi epic, told Entertainment Weekly that director-writer J.J. Abrams is taking extreme measures to make sure no spoilers leak for the upcoming “Star Wars: Episode IX”.
The 67-year-old actor said that things have changed dramatically since the first “Star Wars” movie back in 1977. Hamill said “nobody cared” back then and that he would pass the script around to all of his friends.
“Nowadays it’s like working for some secret deep-state government organization, like being in the CIA. They’re going to send rewrites over to Prague on this dark red paper that gives you a headache to read.”
The dark red paper, which was also used for “The Force Awakens”, is said to make it harder to copy the scripts, as the dark red will come out as black when put through a photocopier, thereby making it near impossible to read.
Hamill isn’t even allowed to keep a copy of the script for himself, which he was able to do while filming “The Last Jedi”.
“They’re going to fly [the rewrites] over with somebody from the company,” he said. “They’re going to come and give it to me and wait for me to read it before I give it back. So no pressure! You can’t even keep it overnight. But that’s the way it is now.”
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Hamill told EW that he likes to have a paper copy of the script so that he can “make notes, little cartoon drawings in the margins to help me visualize it,” something that isn’t possible in electronic form, which is becoming more frequent.
“They wound up letting me keep a script when we were doing [“The Last Jedi”] but I had to lock it up in a safe every night and then carry it with me and never let it out of my sight. And I can understand why — if [a script] gets out it ruins it for everyone.”
“Star Wars: Episode IX” hits theatres on December 20, 2019.
