Entertainment

Mark Hamill Says Carrie Fisher Is "#AlwaysWithMe” After Spotting The Sweetest Reminder Of Her

by Emily Mae Czachor
Jesse Grant/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Minutes before beloved Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's death, he left his intergalactic twin sister with a poignant message: "No one's ever really gone," he told her. And then — just like that — Skywalker was gone. For Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, the phrase has taken on an additional meaning in the aftermath of Carrie Fisher's death. So, when Mark Hamill shared a photo of a painting that reminded him of Fisher, he took it as a beautiful sign that his late friend and former co-star is still around, even if only in his heart. Fans of the franchise hopped on Hamill's nostalgia bandwagon real quick, adding their own bursts of Fisher-centric commentary to the tweet's comments section.

After happening upon a painting that he thought bore likeness to Fisher's Princess Leia, Hamill took to Twitter Tuesday night, March 20, to share the sweet finding with his social media followers. His tweet features two side-by-side close-ups of the his face looking particularly stunned (the way one might after having just received some kind of mystifying sign from the universe) while pointing to a painting of what could conceivably be interpreted as an abstract rendering of his intergalactic twin sis. Accompanying the photos, Hamill captioned the tweet with a message that'll probably have Star Wars fanatics feeling some kind of way from now until the release of Episode IX. (For the record, that's slated for December 2019.)

"Look who I found looking over my shoulder in a painting on the wall of my London hotel room," Hamill wrote in the tweet's caption. Following a well-placed heart-eye emoji, he continued, "Coincidence? I DON'T THINK SO!" The actor finished off the tweet with an uplifting hashtag: "#AlwaysWithMe."

Star Wars fans were quick to share in Hamill's nostalgia with Fisher tributes of their own. One particularly savvy fan noted that the sketched image bears likeness to a particular scene from A New Hope:

Many of the fans' tweets reiterated the idea that "No one's ever really gone." And, unsurprisingly, a handful of them were crying, too. One Twitter user took a more upfront route in expressing his laments. (His comment literally reads, "Y'all are making me cry!!!")

Opting for a slightly different approach, another similarly tearful tweeter subbed out commentary or quotes for a well-placed GIF to convey their distress. As the saying goes, a picture's worth a thousand words:

Others capitalized on the opportunity for some prime Yoda-inspired wordplay. (Honestly, if there was ever a time for Jedi master wisdom, it's in this situation.) Rejiggering Hamill's #AlwaysWithMe hashtag in accordance with a more Yoda-like syntactical structure, one Twitter user offered the actor some words of comfort. "Strange are the ways of the Force," the user wrote, continuing, "Always with you she is."

In that same vein, another Twitter user summoned their inner Yoda to express the same sentiment that everyone else was probably thinking —Fisher might be gone, but her legacy of greatness certainly remains:

Yet another supportive fan suggested that Fisher might be Hamill's "#GuardianAngel." Replying to Hamill's tweet, the user assured him that, as he'd said, Fisher is watching over him:

Fisher passed away in December 2016. Her final appearance in the Star Wars franchise played out during last year's installment, The Last Jedi, which saw her and Hamill's characters share a truly heartrending reunion. But, judging by Hamill's recent tweet (as well as his past social media tribute posts in Fisher's honor), that wasn't their last goodbye. As he wrote, Fisher is always with him.