Mark Hamill says Zelensky called Russia the ‘evil empire’ in Star Wars reference

Mark Hamill has said Volodymyr Zelensky compared Russia to the “evil empire” in Star Wars.

The sci-fi star spoke with the Ukrainian president in September.

Hamill, 71, was asked about their meeting during an appearance on BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.

The actor recalled: “He did reference the movies and it’s not hard to understand why. Star Wars was always a fairytale for children and fairytales are morality tales of good versus evil, where good is clearly defined, evil is clearly defined.

“It’s not hard to extrapolate an evil Empire with Russia invading a sovereign nation. So it’s not surprising, and that’s probably what appealed to him about me.”

He said that their conversation “obviously” did not “dwell” on the subject of Star Wars.

“I mean, I was surprised he had the time in his schedule to even talk to me,” said Hamill.

He laughed: “When we spoke for so long I thought, don’t you have to get back to work?”

Russia’s war in Ukraine is at a “pivotal moment,” Nato said on Friday (30 September) after Vladimir Putin annexed more territory and declared sham referendum results to be “the will of millions of people”.

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg called it “the largest attempted annexation of European territory by force since the Second World War”.