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Mark Hamill's Hilarious, Meta Cameo in Kingsman: The Secret Service, Explained

In the Kingsman franchise, two different Mark Hamill's play vital roles.

By Cassidy Ward
Mark Hamill poses in a white shirt and black suit jacket.

The 2014 action/comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service manages to feel totally fresh even a decade after its release, all while paying homage to the spy thrillers that came before.

The film, which spawned two follow-ups, was based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. The movie (streaming now on SYFY) adapts the first volume of the comic series, but the adaptation isn’t exactly direct. Right away, there’s one notable throughline with an unusual twist: the appearance of Mark Hamill.

Mark Hamill’s appearance in the Kingsman comic book

On the very first page of Kingsman volume 1, readers don’t know much about the story, but they know Mark Hamill is there. The actual Mark Hamill. He’s being held hostage inside a remote mountain home in Zermatt, Switzerland.

His kidnappers take a beat to accuse him of using a stage name and to rag on the Star Wars prequels. In the next page Hamill gets rescued by a Kingsman Agent, who kills absolutely everyone in sight. The agent and Hamill flee on a snowmobile and wind their way rapidly through the woods, with villains nipping at their heels.

Despite their efforts to escape, they end up pinned between an onslaught of bullets and a cliff face. Fortunately, the agent assures Hamill he has nothing to fear as they careen over the cliff’s edge, the parachute will save them both. Unfortunately, that turns out to be untrue and they plummet to their deaths. Of course, Hamill returned to the series for the big screen adaptation, but not as himself.

Mark Hamill’s appearance in Kingsman: The Secret Service

In the movie, Hamill doesn’t show up right away, but he does show up. First, we get a scene from 17 years past, setting up the relationship between Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth). We only get to Hamill after the first body drops.

The next scene sets up the movie’s main villain and the challenge to be overcome, that’s where Hamill comes in. The kidnapping remains, but the target has changed. Instead of playing himself, Hamill plays Professor James Arnold, a researcher who’s caught the attention of the movie’s antagonist.

In the next moment, an agent arrives (before Professor Arnold gets a chance to sample the ‘62 Dalmore, mind you) and kills absolutely everyone, Professor Arnold excluded. Then the agent gets sliced in half by a woman with knife legs. It’s awesome. That’s when Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) arrives. He’s an eco-supervillain with an appropriately villainous plan. He’s going to fix the problems of global climate changes, pollution, and species loss by wiping out most of humanity.

Rather than plummeting off a cliff, this Mark Hamill fares a little better and lives to die another day.

SPOILER ALERT! His character does die, though, and in spectacular fashion. If you want to see how, catch Kingsman: The Secret Service, streaming now on SYFY!

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