WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett, "Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger," now streaming on Disney+.
Luke Skywalker has made another surprise live action appearance, this time in The Book of Boba Fett. But the actor playing the younger Jedi Knight isn't who viewers might think he is.
It certainly isn't Mark Hamill reprising his role as Luke from decades ago, but it isn't the actor who previously portrayed him The Mandalorian, either. Actor Graham Hamilton's name appears in the credits of The Book of Boba Fett's latest episode, "Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger" as "Performance Artist - Jedi." That Jedi, of course, is presumably Luke. Hamilton has appeared in The Orville and NCIS, among his other credits.
Hamilton wasn't the only actor involved in bringing Luke's younger version to life. Scott Lang is also credited as "Stunt Double - Jedi," and of course the CGI face of a younger Hamill is superimposed over Hamilton's. There's also the matter of Luke's voice, which correspondingly sounds much younger than the 70-year-old Hamill's. It's unclear from the episode's credits how his voice was generated, but it's possible Hamill's own could have been used and digitally de-aged.
Actor Max Lloyd-Jones served as Luke's body double for his surprise return in The Mandalorian's Season 2 finale. Lloyd-Jones more recently played the role of New Republic's Lieutenant Reed in The Book of Boba Fett's previous episode, and his involvement with the series led viewers to speculate Luke would return. Ironically, that return didn't involve Lloyd-Jones.
In "Chapter 6," Luke is seen training the foundling Grogu in the ways of the Jedi. Grogu's return was foreshadowed in the previous episode when Mandalorian Din Djarin noted he was going to deliver a gift to his "little friend," meaning another appearance by Luke wasn't out of the question. Djarin delivered Grogu to Luke in the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian.
The timelines of both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett are set roughly five years after Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, necessitating some CGI trickery to bring that era's Luke back to the live screen.
The latest episode also featured several other surprise appearances, among them Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano, the return of Timothy Olyphant’s character The Marshal, and the live action debut of Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ bounty hunter Cad Bane.
Season 1 of The Book of Boba Fett concludes next Wednesday, Feb. 9 on Disney+.
Source: Disney+, via The Direct