LOS ANGELES, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Mark Hamill says he had suppressed memories resurface as he prepared to play The Major in The Long Walk, in theaters Friday. The villainous character leads a race in which 50 young men walk until only one remains alive.
The Major rides in his military jeep to supervise the Long Walk, an annual contest in a dystopian United States. Contestants who slow down or stop are given three warnings before they are shot and killed by the Major's troops.
Based on the Stephen King novel, The Long Walk brought back memories for Hamill of his time on a Marines base. In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Hamill, 73, shared how he spent junior and senior high on a base where his father, a Navy captain, was stationed.
The Star Wars actor said he witnessed sergeants training men in ways he described as "inhuman."
"I saw a guy vomit and the sergeant said, 'You eat that, dogface,' and he gave him a spoon and he had to eat what he expelled," Hamill said. "I couldn't put it together. Why would that be a good thing for a soldier to have to experience?"
