SPOILERS FOR FORCE AWAKENS
Remember that famous picture of the full cast of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens at the first table read (below)? Notice that Mark Hamill is there? Seems a bit odd in retrospect, as he is in the film for a total of about one minute, and he has no dialogue. Well, in an interview with EW, director J.J. Abrams talked about Hamill’s presence:
It was partly trickery. We knew, obviously, that he didn’t speak in the film. And because we knew we were going to take pictures, and people knew he was in the movie, we needed to have him there. It wouldn’t have been right not to have him there. But it also wouldn’t have been right to have him there and not participate.
So, Hamill’s talents as one of the industry’s voice actors was put to work, and he was given the role of reading stage directions in the script. Footage of the reading is available as an extra on the Blu-ray, and here is a short promo for it:
