Mark Hamill Was Shocked Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford Had an Affair: ‘I Was Blissfully Unaware’
In 2016, Carrie Fisher published her third memoir, The Princess Diarist. The memoir was released five weeks before Fisher’s death and recounted Fisher’s experience filming the 1977 film Star Wars: A New Hope.
In the memoir, Fisher revealed that she and co-star Harrison Ford had an affair while filming Star Wars: A New Hope. It turns out their co-star Mark Hamill was unaware the affair even happened in the first place.
Details about Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford’s affair
When Fisher took on the role of Princess Leia Organa she was only 19 years old. Ford played Han Solo in the movie. At the time, Ford was 33 years old and married to Mary Marquardt. Together, he and Marquardt had two children.
Fisher wrote The Princess Diarist after finding diaries she kept during the filming of Star Wars: A New Hope. As a result, the revelation that she had an affair with Ford came 40 years after the movie was released.
According to The Princess Diarist, Ford and Fisher began an affair following a birthday party for Star Wars creator George Lucas. The affair lasted for three months and ended when filming for the movie wrapped.
“It was a three-month one-night stand,” Fisher said while on Today in 2016.
Mark Hamill did not know about Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford’s affair
Hamill played Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin Skywalker turned Darth Vader and brother to Leia in the “Skywalker saga.” Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he co-starred with Fisher and Ford in Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
In a 2016 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Hamill disclosed that he did not know the affair between his Star Wars co-stars even happened.
“I was so self-involved at that point, they could’ve been doing it in front of me and I wouldn’t have noticed,” Hamill told ET. “I was single and had my own agenda.”
He continued, “But I was blissfully unaware, which was good for me. I think it might have been a distraction if I’d known what was going on.”
Mark Hamill thinks relationships on set are common
While Hamill did not know the affair took place before the release of The Princess Diarist, in a way the shocking news made sense. After working in the industry for so many years, Hamill finds workplace affairs on the sets of films and TV shows to be quite common.
Hamill told ET that while relationships on sets happen frequently, they are “tricky” to navigate.
“If the relationship doesn’t last and you’re on a TV series and you got four more seasons to go, it can be really awkward,” he said. “It happened to me. I was with a girl who was playing my sister on a soap opera, General Hospital.”
Fisher, Ford, and Hamill all went on to reprise their roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
