SALLY SPARKMAN - Assistant to Mark Hamill

TheForce.net -  WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR JOB WITH MARK HAMILL?

SALLY - I am his one and only assistant!

TheForce.net - HOW DID YOU GET THIS POSITION?

SALLY - Ahhhhh.......good question! Actually, I was a friend of Mark and Marilou's first. When I was chatting with Marilou a couple of years ago, she mentioned they needed an assistant to handle Mark's fan mail and other office type things and I instantly volunteered.

TheForce.net - MANY PEOPLE HAVE NEVER MET MARK HAMILL. KNOWING HIM PERSONALLY, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE HIM? WHAT'S SOMETHING THAT MOST PEOPLE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW ABOUT HIM?

SALLY - I know that Mark would laugh and probably blush at this. Then he would definitely wave his hand in the air and say, "NO, she's wrong." BUT, he is actually very much like his character of Luke Skywalker in so many ways. Mark (and Marilou, his incredible wife of 18 years) is deeply honorable and dedicated to his family. He is honest to a fault and extremely humble. One thing people probably don't know about him is that he loves old TV shows. He tapes all the old shows like "I Love Lucy" and "Bilco" and "Happy Days". He is a very passionate person. I could go on for pages. Guess you'd say I'm definitely a fan.

TheForce.net - WHAT'S THE MOST INTERESTING OR WEIRD THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU AS PART OF YOUR JOB?

SALLY - LOL! Well, you mean outside this interview, I presume! (Hey, as the daughter of a Texas Aggie, I never ever thought I'd be interviewed by an Aggie for an Aggie anything! This is quite an honor and a sort of homecoming for me.) Well, let's see. I suppose the first day I was over at the house Mark and Marilou were renting while their home was being remodeled (actually rebuilt, completely, but they still call it a remodel). We were working out of the garage in their rental home and had maybe 15 file cabinets lining one wall, boxes everywhere, and a picnic table in the middle of it all to sit at. I was organizing some paperwork and opened a file cabinet marked something like "Mark's junk". There to greet me was this rubber frog maybe 16" long or so. It was a really ugly frog, as frogs go, but it did have somewhat of a "familiar look" to it. Marilou came down the stairs at that moment and saw me looking questioningly at this stupid frog I was holding in my hand, and laughed. "Oh, that's one of those frogs Jabba the Hutt had. There were five of them made for the movie and Mark kept that one." I stood there looking over this pretty stupid-looking frog thinking about all the steps that went into that frog's life to bring him from someone's conception to being in a file cabinet in Mark's garage. It just caught me as weird that I should be standing there holding something that had been part of the Star Wars that changed my life so dramatically. (It was watching Star Wars that made up my mind for me what I wanted my major in college to be -- I went on to earn a BFA in film production.)

TheForce.net - HAVE YOU MET ANYBODY ELSE ASSOCIATED WITH STAR WARS SUCH AS THE ACTORS OR GEORGE LUCAS? HOW DID YOU MEET THEM AND WHAT WERE THEY LIKE?

SALLY - Nope! I haven't met anyone else. Carrie Fisher is doing script doctoring these days and I believe does live here in California, but I'm not sure where. Harrison Ford doesn't live here at all, so I wouldn't have bumped into him. I have met a lot of other celebrities, but none associated with Star Wars. Sorry. BUT, I do have a funny story about something that happened at Mark's house one day back in July. I was there to get some work done on a Saturday afternoon, and to interview Mark for the newsletter (fan club/website), and toward the end of the interview, Bill Mumy (Will Robinson from Lost in Space, and now one of the principal characters on Babylon 5 -- oh, and co-author of the song, "Fish Heads" [eat them up yum!]) and another man (a director) showed up to just kick back with Mark. We had never met before, and we were busy, so they just kicked back in the living room and stayed quiet while I had the tape recorder rolling for the last question or two of the interview. After I was done, we all sat around chatting. Bill finally looked over and asked me who I was, expecting that I was with one of the tabloids or something. I responded that I was Mark's assistant and Bill did a huge double-take! Apparently he does not have an assistant! He asked what I did as his assistant and I mentioned the fan mail and web site. He looked at Mark in total awe, and Mark instantly went into that same huge stupid grin, slipping his hands behind his head and beaming with pride thing that he did in "Empire Strikes Back" when Leah had kissed him in the medical unit and Han was jealous. In that "beaming with pride" mode, Mark said, "Go on, Sally, tell him about the web site!" I about lost it laughing so hard! Bill was clearly amazed and impressed and everyone had a good laugh. The truth is, though, that Mark doesn't even OWN a computer and at that moment in time had never even seen his own web page!

TheForce.net - WHAT PROJECTS IN THE NEAR FUTURE DOES MARK HAVE LINED UP? ANY MORE COMICS, MOVIES, GAMES, OR CARTOONS?

SALLY - Oh, boy! Wow.........A LOT. He and his cousin/co-writer, Eric Johnson, are working hard on their screen adaptation of The Black Pearl, which Mark hopes to direct. Both are also working on other projects, although that's their major baby right now. Mark is (even as I sit here typing this) in Florida doing a CotCom thing -- short series of shows for them.

He was asked if he would do Wing Commander V and naturally said "yes!" I don't know when that will happen, but my guess is possibly later this year. He is always getting offers to do movies, and did a few last year, but they were mostly those "made for cable" films -- LaserHawk, for example. He also does a lot of voice-over work for animated series on TV, and has a new series called "The Blues Brothers" coming out on one of the cable channels soon. Again, I could go on and on........

TheForce.net - ANY WORD IF MARK WILL HAVE ANY PART IN THE UPCOMING STAR WARS PROJECTS?

SALLY - No.... The prequels are really Anakin's story and begin pretty much with his birth. They are set a good 20 years prior to Luke's and Leia's birth, which places it 40 years or so before the time frame for "Star Wars -- A New Hope".

TheForce.net - WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO SEE IN THE NEW STAR WARS TRILOGY (EPISODES 1,2,&3)?

SALLY - I've been told that we will be very sympathetic to Anakin, that we will follow his life story from his birth on through his turning to the dark side through the first three movies. What I hope to see is some absolutely incredible special effects, the few "original cast" we can expect -- C3PO, R2D2, Obiwan, Yoda -- and some wonderful new characters.

TheForce.net - DO YOU THINK THAT THE CHARACTER OF LUKE SKYWALKER SHOULD GET MARRIED? WHY OR WHY NOT?

SALLY - Actually, I know several Star Wars fans who feel he should. I tend to agree because it is the natural progression of the story -- of passing the force down through the family ("The Force is strong in my family," he tells Leia in Return of the Jedi). One writer friend of mine, Kris Rose, has written a Star Wars story which has Luke marry. It is an absolutely wonderful story that gives strength to both Luke and his bride. I would really like to see her get it published. I've seen several versions people have written about Luke either begin married, or remaining the ever-celebate hero, but I truly like hers the best, and the idea of Luke passing on the tradition feels right.

TheForce.net - WHO'S MORE OF A STUD, HAN SOLO OR LUKE SKYWALKER? (ANSWER TRUTHFULLY NOW! IT'S NOT LIKE YOUR JOB'S RIDING ON IT! :) )

SALLY - LOL! Oh, I've always had a thing for Luke. Hands down, Luke is every woman's heart throb in that set of movies. He is the perfect stud -- innocent, young, handsome, strong yet vulnerable -- all the qualities that make up the perfect "stud". Personally, I was hooked the moment I saw him on the screen...........and still am! (But, don't tell Marilou!) In person, those eyes and that devilish grin will melt your heart!

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