Star Wars 8: Mark Hamill on whether Luke Skywalker is gay: ‘It is meant to be interpreted by the viewer’

'If you think Luke is gay, of course he is.'

Nascent incestuous feelings for his sister aside, is the reason for Luke Skywalker’s solitude that he is a repressed homosexual? Is it hard for a Jedi to come out? Is there institutional homophobia at the Jedi Council?

Let’s face it, the reason for Luke’s lack of love interest thus far in the saga is almost certainly simply down to the fact that the original trilogy chose to focus on Han and Leia for its romantic plot strand (that, and Jedi aren't supposed to love).

That said, it’s a screenwriter’s job to mine unexplored elements for future films, so it’s very possible the idea of Luke being gay has crossed the mind of Star Wars 8 writer/director Rian Johnson.

Mark Hamill was asked about it this week, and said that “of course” it’s possible.

“I just read online that JJ is very much open to that. In the old days you would get fan mail,” The Sun quotes him as saying. “But now fans are writing and ask all these questions, 'I'm bullied in school... I'm afraid to come out'."

He continued: "They say to me, 'Could Luke be gay?' I'd say it is meant to be interpreted by the viewer.

"If you think Luke is gay, of course he is. You should not be ashamed of it. Judge Luke by his character, not by who he loves."

If Luke was written as gay, this would seem to injure the fan theory that Rey is Luke's daughter.

The JJ Abrams comments he refers to are the ones the director recently made to The Daily Beast about the lack of openly gay characters in the franchise in general.

"When I talk about inclusivity it's not excluding gay characters," he said. "It's about inclusivity. So of course."

Some fans were hoping that Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron’s (Oscar Isaac) chemistry in The Force Awakens would blossom into romance, but Boyega doesn’t see it happening.

"As far as I'm concerned,” he told Digital Spy, “when JJ sat us down to go through the script, it was a bromance."

Star Wars: Episode VIII will open in cinemas on 15 December, 2017.