Mark Hamill has been best known for his role as Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars franchise for the past 49 years. However, his acting career has also gone into the realm of voice acting over the years, and he has been known for many voice roles, including in video games. So, beyond Luke Skywalker and the Star Wars franchise, take a deep dive into the following voice acting roles Mark Hamill has been known for:
A Clown Prince of Crime
Arguably Mark’s best known role alongside Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill has voiced Batman villain The Joker since 1992’s Batman: The Animated Series. For 30 years, Mark has been the voice of the Joker in various Batman and DC Comics-related media, and in the video game world, Mark’s voice has brought The Joker to life in titles from the Batman: Arkham series (Asylum, Knight, Origins, etc), LEGO DC Super-Villains, and DC Universe Online to 2022’s MultiVersus. Just like with Batman: The Animated Series, Hamill has voiced The Joker opposite Kevin Conroy’s Batman/Bruce Wayne. Following Conroy’s passing in 2022, Mark has since completely retired from voicing The Joker (via GamesRadar+).
“Without Batman, crime has no punchline.”
The Dark (Purple Dragon) Master
20 years ago, the Spyro franchise got rebooted into a new video game trilogy, starting with The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. The series continued in 2007 with the sequel The Eternal Night, and ended in 2008 with Dawn of the Dragon. During the first two games, Spyro (voiced by Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood) was told stories of an evil dragon also known by the title The Dark Master. Finally in Dawn of the Dragon, The Dark Master was revealed live on-screen as the evil Malefor, a rare purple dragon proceeding Spyro himself. Malefor was behind the previous two games’ events that threatened the world with destruction, including kidnapping the black dragoness Cynder and corrupting her mind in order to serve his plans.
Mark Hamill was brought in by the devs to voice the trilogy’s ultimate antagonist. However, Malefor as a villain received mixed reactions, particularly with his voice. While Mark’s vocal performance was not the issue, all the heavy voice effects added to Mark’s voice as Malefor was. All of this voice editing rendered Mark’s own voice nearly unrecognizable. In my opinion, all the heavy voice filters were a lot heavier than even Matthew Wood’s voice as General Grievous in Star Wars. Luckily, a bit of audio recording does exist, giving fans a glimpse of Mark’s unfiltered voice recording Malefor’s lines. An unfiltered Malefor could’ve been a dragon Joker.
When it came to Season 2 of the 2016 Netflix series Skylanders Academy (adaption of the Toys-to-Life Skylanders games), Mark Hamill was unavailable to voice a new version of Malefor in 2017, due to filming Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Instead, fellow veteran voice actor Jim Cummings got recast as the character. At least here, Jim’s voice is so much more recognizable… a little bit of the Disney villain Pete, but as a dragon (not to be mistaken for Pete’s Dragon).
On a quick side note, Skylanders Academy Malefor being the father of the show’s version of Cynder did reference/mirror Cynder being Malefor’s servant in the Legend of Spyro trilogy.
The Fire Lord (or Phoenix King)
One of the most popular Nickelodeon franchises from the mid-2000s, Avatar: The Last Airbender also grew with video games. In a war-stricken world of elemental benders, Mark Hamill lent his voice to Fire Lord Ozai of the Fire Nation (and father to Prince Zuko) in the TV show, and he also did so in one of the show’s video game adaptions… 2008’s Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno. This game was based on the show’s final of the three seasons, in which towards the end of the series, Fire Lord Ozai draws so close into world domination through an entire scorched Earth campaign in order to build a new world in his image. This includes raising himself from Fire Lord to the Phoenix King.
Along with Hamill, several of the TV show’s voice cast reprised their roles in this video game, including Michaela Jill Murphy as Toph, Mae Whitman as Katara, Dante Basco as Prince Zuko, and Zach Tyler Eisen as main protagonist Avatar Aang.
A Keyblade Master
The Kingdom Hearts video games by Square Enix and Disney has been an ongoing series since the early 2000s, though some games like Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 have had as much as decades-long gaps between releases. While Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Mickey Mouse himself are the characters that KH fans gravitate to the most, Mark Hamill has gotten to voice Keyblade Master Eraquis (prominently) in 2010’s Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep and again in Kingdom Hearts 3 in 2019.
In short, Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort are on opposite ends of the Kingdom Hearts story, in terms of light and darkness. Eraqus is on the good side, fighting Xehanort and other Heartless forces and training apprentices Terra, Aqua, and Ventus in order to maintain peace throughout the Kingdom Hearts world(s). Despite his protagonist status, fans have witnessed the complicated (if not, questionable) lengths he would go to in order to stop Xehanort and his plans.
A Wing Commander
Alright, technically, this was not a voice acting role… but it is one of Mark Hamill’s earliest video game voice acting credits. Head back to the year 1994 for a video game called Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger. This was one of the 90s video games mixing live-action Full Motion Video (FMV) into video games. Mark played as Col. Christopher “Maverick” Blair in this Sci-Fi gaming adventure. Other big name actors that joined Mark in this venture included John-Rhys Davies, Malcolm McDowell, and Tim Curry. While the game, console-wise, was released on the Panasonic 3DO and the original Sony PlayStation, Wing Commander 3 is also available for purchase to this day on PC via GOG (Good Old Games) and the EA App for only a few US Dollars as of this writing.
Honorable Mentions
Mark Hamill has plenty more voice acting credits in addition to those above. Thanks to Behind The Voice Actors, here are even more of Hamill’s gaming voice roles:
- Detective Mosely – Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993, his first ever video game voice role)
- Ugh, Chip, Dash, and Old Man – Bouncers (1994)
- Py-Ro the Fire Elemental – Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001)
- Goro Majima – Yakuza (2006)
- Znus – Crash: Mind over Mutant (2008)
- The Watcher – Darksiders (2010)
- Alkari Emperor – Masters of Orion (2016)
- Trickster – LEGO DC Super-Villains (2018)
- Arnim Zola – Lego Marvel Avengers (2016)
- Wolverine/Logan – X2: Wolverine’s Revenge (2003)
- Stickybeard – Codename: Kids Next Door – Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E (2005)
What do you think of Mark Hamill’s video game voice acting roles that do not involve Star Wars? Any that surprised you the most? Let us know on Smash Jump’s Social Media!
