Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) Turns 61 Today, Where Is He Now?

Hey Star Wars fans! Mark Hamill, that once spritely 26 year old rookie actor whose name we all know today because he was encouraged by his buddy Robert Englund (Yup, Freddy) to audition for that little low-budget film that no movie studio would touch back in the day has a birthday today. He's 61 and should probably be a Jedi Master by now, but he hung up his lightsaber following the success of Star Wars and has been busy all of this time making quite a name for himself and shall we say, is still quite 'animated'...

He's still on screen although you can't see him but you can certainly hear him, as a voice actor on cartoons and video games. We knew him as the hero but he has ironically found work playing characters that are very much on the 'dark side'. He seems to actually enjoy his roles as the villain (insert maniacal laugh here) which include the Hobgoblin in the Spider-man cartoon series and most notable as the voice of the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series (which I watched religiously) and very recently as the same cracked-up criminal in the Batman: Arkham series video games.

Maybe George Lucas should've cast this guy as Darth Vader instead, I mean after all Luke is Vader's son and as it turns out, the apple hasn't fallen that far from the tree although he did jump franchises! If you'd like to see (ahem, hear) Mark today and don't have a PS3 or Xbox 360 to play the Batman games, all you need do is flip on your TV and you can check him out tonight! That's right, he's on the latest episode of the Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk the spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon as 'Alvin the Treacherous' (yup, the antagonist... again) which airs on the Cartoon Network at 7:30pm. If you can't check it out, be sure to set your DVR's but my kids and I will be definitely be watching! Happy birthday Luke, er Joker, I mean Alvin, no um MARK! The force is obviously still very strong with this one.