I Met Luke Skywalker Today
You’ve probably seen the pictures and videos by now, they’re sweeping the nation. Today, at Good Morning America, I met my hero: Mark Hamill…Luke Skywalker.
A few weeks ago, Jeff Lowe (of Lights, Camera, Podcast fame) asked myself and Clem if we’d like to come to Good Morning America when Mark Hamill would be there promoting ‘The Last Jedi’. We instantly said yes, got the details, and were AMPED UP. We were gonna be in the same building as Luke Skywalker! I’d seen Mark at Star Wars Celebration from a distance, and went to his one man show in NYC last month, but this was gonna be intimate! I was so excited.
I’ve had the appointment for my newest tattoo – the lightsaber on my forearm – for weeks, and it just so happened that Hamill’s GMA date was pushed back at the last minute until the day after the appointment. Unreal! That’s the Force at work! So I go and get the tattoo yesterday, it was a three and a half hour session and hurt like an absolute motherfucker (but so worth it), and I came back to the city with the intention of going to sleep EARLY because I had a long day ahead of me. That didn’t happen. I was wide awake all night, tossing and turning like a child on Christmas Eve.
I wake up at 5am this morning, and had major anxiety when getting ready. What if I get to meet him? What do I say? Do I call him Mr. Hamill, just mister, maybe sir? I didn’t know if I could handle the pressure. Deep breaths, Robbie, deep breaths. Clem unfortunately had to drop out at the last minute to watch his daughter (damn kids), so I walked over to the GMA building in Times Square, having no idea I was in for one of the best mornings of my life.
I got seated in the audience, the show started, and Michael Strahan came up to me pretty early on during a commercial break and asked about the big ol’ lightsaber on my forearm.
“Is that a lightsaber?!” he inquired.
“Yeah!” I nervously replied.
“Who’s is it?” Strahan questioned further.
“It’s Luke’s first one.” I said, making sure Michael Strahan knew it wasn’t used in Return of the Jedi.
“So you’re a massive fan, huh?” he gathered.
“Star Wars? Eh. I dabble.”


It was at that moment when I realized why people call me Condescending Bob. Strahan laughed though.
A producer came up to me and asked if I’d like to be involved in a Star Wars segment backstage, and I idiotically asked her if I’d miss Mark Hamill’s interview. She said no, obviously not, because they weren’t gonna pull the fucking Star Wars fans out of the audience to miss the Star Wars segment, and brought me to the green room where this happened…
While I’d like to that all the props people on Twitter were giving me for “keeping my composure” or “playing it cool”…I just froze up. Completely froze. I don’t really get star struck with anyone, especially since starting here, but when I got the whiff of midichlorians up my nostrils, I went stiff as a board.
He was pulled out of the room instantly, and I didn’t get any closer to him than I was in that clip, but I was content with my entire morning. That moment was good enough for me.
Margot Robbie came out, did an interview promoting ‘I, Tonya’, was BY FAR the most attractive human being I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes, and we got this phenomenal screengrab out of it:
Mark Hamill came out, did his interview, it was amazing, he was hysterical, and I thought, “This day can’t get any better.” I cheered for a bunch of savings and deals on gizmos/gadgets, I’m talking full on applause and yelling for like 50% off a light to put on your bike so cars don’t hit you at night. It was wild.
After the show went off the air, I caught Jeff in the corner of my eye, and he was frantically waving me over. Shit…is about…to go…DOWN!
I speedwalk over to him, see that Mark Hamill is standing there, along with a bunch of techs and producers and people. As soon as I saw Mark life became a dream and I went into a haze. Fantasy land type stuff. A producer loudly goes “Show him the tattoo!” and I extend my arm out, unsure of what I should even say in that moment. Mark saw it and went “Wow! Look at that! Gorgeous! You found it!”
“You found it!” is such a classic Star Wars guy joke and it was slipped in so subtly I almost missed it. Luke lost the hilt tattooed on my forearm in Empire Strikes Back. It was attached to the hand Darth Vader (SPOILERS: his father) cut off.
A few people in that little group said “Get together for a picture!” and he grabbed my arm upside down, and realized it right away. “Hold on, put your arm up like this!” Mark commanded, almost, getting into his Luke Skywalker mind-frame and posing for the now iconic photograph. The look on my face in that picture is the first moment in my thirty second encounter with the Jedi that I realized what was happening. I almost said, “Uh, be careful with the tattoo, it’s still healing!”, but the worst that could’ve happened was him fucking it up and then it’s a story. Why do I have a weird smudged lightsaber on my arm? Luke Skywalker grasped it too firmly. I finally blurted something out, and it was something along the lines of, “Sir, thank you so much. I’m such a big fan.” I went with sir. He said thank you, and in the blink of an eye, rode off into the sunset*.
*catering
From that, we got a picture that says a thousand words. Nothing in this world makes me as happy as Star Wars does, and this felt like the pinnacle of all of that joy. The response to me putting out the picture might’ve been better than the picture itself, too. I got hundreds of tweets from people saying they were so happy for me. In the office everyone just keeps saying how happy for me. I don’t feel like I necessarily deserve that, but it’s heartwarming as fuck and I’m gonna go home and cry later thinking about it. Love you guys.
They say don’t meet your heroes, but I met Luke Skywalker and he was cool as shit.
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Last minute update: I was about to hit publish, and Mark Hamill himself posted our picture on Twitter and Instagram.
I’m best friends with Luke Skywalker and I can’t believe it. This may be the best day of my life.