Mark Hamill reveals at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 that one of his co-stars on The Long Walk didn’t want to meet him at first, but the young actor had a good reason for it. Hamill is back playing a pivotal role in another Stephen King movie with his villainous portrayal of The Major in Lionsgate’s upcoming survival thriller that adapts the author’s 1979 book.

Before becoming part of multiple Stephen King movie productions, which started with The Life of Chuck earlier this year, Hamill already had a legendary career filled with playing Luke Skywalker for Star Wars across decades and becoming synonymous with the voice of Joker in animated DC projects. He’s practically universally beloved in Hollywood and by audiences for that reason, so just about anyone would love to meet him.

Yet, Hamill has now shared a funny story about one of his new co-stars, Cooper Hoffman, not wanting to meet him initially. Lionsgate held a panel for The Long Walk in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, which Screen Rant’s Brandon Zachary attended. During the panel, which also included a new The Long Walk trailer, Hamill shared that he wanted to meet his new co-star for breakfast before filming began, but Hoffman turned down the offer out of fear he’d like Hamill too much.

According to Hamill, Hoffman was worried that meeting and liking the actor so much would change how he’d approach The Long Walk. Hoffman plays the movie’s lead, Raymond Garraty, putting him in direct opposition to Hamill’s Major. Hamill says he understood Hoffman’s reasoning, canceled the breakfast, and then told his agent that when they did meet, “Cooper WILL like me.”

What This Means For The Long Walk

Ray & Major’s Dynamic Should Be Accurate

Hoffman’s refusal to meet Hamill before The Long Walk began speaks to how seriously he approached this new role. He clearly did not want to have any reason why his performance would convey anything other than hate toward the Major.

In The Long Walk, the Major is responsible for enforcing the rules that Ray and the other teenage boys must follow as the walking compeтιтion continues. This leads to the walkers having an increasing amount of disdain toward him in the story, especially as the full length of the Major’s influence and control is revealed.

While Hoffman and Hamill did meet throughout filming, it’s unclear how much one-on-one time they had off-screen that could impact how either of them approaches Ray and the Major’s dynamic. At the very least, we now know that Hoffman did everything he could to make sure he could convincingly hate Hamill’s character without too much of the actor’s real-world persona influencing him.

Our Take On Hamill’s The Long Walk Story

His Interactions With Hoffman Can’t Be Missed Now

Even though we didn’t get Hoffman’s side of this story through The Long Walk‘s SDCC 2025 panel, the reasoning for not wanting to meet Hamill ahead of time is commendable. He must be a huge fan of Hamill from afar (who isn’t?), but that distance can still allow him to separate Hamill from the Major. Meeting him may have blurred the lines a bit more.

It’s impressive to me that Hoffman would take this approach, and it probably was a difficult choice to make. But, the early looks at The Long Walk are promising and make Hamill’s Major someone who should be easy to hate. Seeing how Hoffman and Hamill’s interactions go on-screen is now something that I’m particularly excited to see when the movie comes out in two months.