Star Wars actor Mark Hamill dropped by the White House on Friday for a visit with President Joe Biden and walked away with a pair of the president’s aviator sunglasses and a greater respect for the office.
“I love the merch,” he said, taking off the glasses during a quick appearance at the White House daily press briefing following his meeting with Mr Biden.
Hamill, 72, famous for playing Luke Skywalker, kidded with reporters that he would take a few questions — as long as they were not about Star Wars.
“I was honoured to be asked to come to the White House to meet the president,” he said.
Hamill has been to the White House before, during the Carter and Obama administrations, but he had never checked out the Oval Office, and that was quite something, he said.
Mr Biden showed off photographs and other Oval Office items, Hamill said.
Hamill said the president told him to call him “Joe”, to which Hamill offered an alternative suggestion: “Can I call you Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi?”
“He liked that,” said Hamill, who also voiced the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.
Both Hamill and the White House were vague about his reason for visiting.
But Hamill, a Democrat and Biden supporter with a huge social media following, has been posting about the president’s re-election campaign this week.
“May The First Not Quench Your Thirst For Biden’s re-election,” he wrote on May 1.
On Friday he posted: “May The Third Be Absurd That The Guy Who Tried To Steal A Fair Election Is Allowed To Run Again,” a reference to Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
May 4 is unofficially Star Wars Day, in part because of the famous Jedi phrase “May the force be with you.”
The pun goes, “May the fourth be with you.”
Hamill also lent his voice to Air Alert – a downloadable app linked to Ukraine’s air defence system.
His voice urges people to take cover whenever Russia unleashes another aerial bombardment on Ukraine.