Child’s Play Casts Mark Hamill As Chucky

There’s one more iconic character for Mark Hamill to add to his resume. The man behind Luke Skywalker, Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, and a long list of other heroes and villains has found his next role as the murderous Chucky doll in the remake of the horror film Child’s Play.

The news was revealed during the Child’s Play WonderCon panel, via a pre-recorded video from Hamill, in which he talked about his excitement to take on the psychopathic toy. The casting was even news to the movie’s other cast members, who were only told of his joining the project just before they walked on stage. Aubrey Plaza, who stars in the movie, joked that she willed this into happening by killing Chucky with a lightsaber during filming.

As for Hamill’s role in Child’s Play, he’s still recording dialogue, producer Seth Grahame-Smith hinted. “To have an icon reimagining an iconic character is an incredible gift,” the producer said. “He’s taken on this challenge with a huge amount of energy and really come at it in a serious way.” The actor himself teased this news was coming in a tweet a day before the official reveal.

Of course, this is far from Hamill’s first voice work. In addition to his aforementioned Batman: The Animated Series turn as the Joker, he’s done voices for TV shows like SWAT Kats, Adventure Time, and Ultimate Spider-Man.

The panel also included some new footage from Child’s Play, which featured a young boy (Gabriel Bateman) trying to convince his mom (Plaza) that his toy doll had come to life and was, in fact, a murderer. Of course, if you know anything about the Child’s Play franchise, you should be able to guess that was followed by a lot of carnage as Chucky tried to kill the mom and her son.

Child’s Play also stars Bryan Tyree Henry and Tim Matheson. It hits theaters on June 21.