Mark Hamill: We wore hoods to avoid snooping drones on the Star Wars set

By Brandon Wall

These ARE the actors you’re looking for!

While speaking with the Sun-Times’ Bill Zwecker over the weekend, Mark Hamill revealed a “makes sense if you think about it” detail about filming a movie as high-profile as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”: Snooping drones are a bit of a problem.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a movie set where if you go from your trailer to a soundstage, you have to put on an enormous robe with a hood that hangs down over your head. I asked one of the production assistants, ‘What’s this all about.’ They told me, ‘Oh, it’s because of the drones,’ flying overhead, taking photographs of people walking to the soundstage.

The move isn’t exactly unprecedented. In September, footage from a drone hit the internet that revealed tantalizing bits of a “Star Wars” set in Berkshire. Watch at your own spoiler-y risk.

Vice’s Motherboard reported soon thereafter that Pinewood Studios may have ordered something called a “DroneShield,” a product designed to provide a heads-up of helicopters and drones used by paparazzi luring in the area.

In case you were wondering, Hamill also revealed over the weekend that he isn’t a beard person, which is a real shame, because look how great his looks!

Read the Sun-Times’ full interview with Mark Hamill

Next Up In News

Netflix looks to curb password sharing, considers ads

Aiming to predict COVID, future pandemics better, CDC opens infectious diseases forecasting center

Joliet farmers wrangle cows thrown from semitrailer after crash on Interstate 80

1 killed, 3 wounded in shootings Tuesday in Chicago

Obama relatives sue Milwaukee school alleging racial bias

Unmasked transit: Pritzker ends mask mandates in public transportation, airports