When Mark Hamill’s career took off after landing his iconic role in “Star Wars,” it was natural that other actors came to him for career advice — including Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But as Hamill revealed over the weekend via Twitter, his advice was totally wrong for the bodybuilder.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger asked me for advice when he was just starting out,” Hamill wrote on Saturday. “I told him to lose his accent for a wider range of roles & to change his last name since no one could pronounce it. He did the opposite & became one of the biggest stars EVER.”
Luckily, Schwarzenegger didn’t listen. But the former governor of California tweeted back at Hamill that he understood his advice at the time.
“Your advice was absolutely correct under any normal circumstances, and those were the rules back then. I just happen to be a rule-breaker,” the “Terminator” star wrote.
Still, Hamill recognized that their exchange was a “missed opportunity.”
“It wasn’t until years later that I realized it was a missed opportunity for me to ask YOU for advice,” he tweeted back at Schwarzenegger. “My belated apologies, mh” and included the hashtags #RuleBreakersRule #BeYourself #HastaLaVistaHamill.”
Seems like we need a career advice show (or at a least a panel) from these two Hollywood icons.
As far as Hamill’s own career goes, he got a major career boost from Freddy Krueger himself. The young actor once stayed with “Nightmare on Elm Street” star Robert Englund, who told Hamill to audition for a role in a movie called “Star Wars.”
″ ... I went home and told a little kid that was sleeping on my couch, after a six-pack of Heineken, all about [‘Star Wars’], and his name was Mark Hamill,” Englund told Yahoo in 2014.
“I said, ’Hey, Lucas is doing this space movie. Maybe you’re right for it. The lead guy’s like a teenager ... So Mark got on the phone to his agent and I think he went up the next day. He nailed it, and the rest is history.”