The original Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill, has confirmed he and Harrison Ford are in talks to reprise their iconic roles for the new Star Wars film.

Hamill told the ET Online website: "They're talking to us. George [Lucas] wanted to know whether we'd be interested. He did say that if we didn't want to do it, they wouldn't cast another actor in our parts - they would write us out."

"It's all very, very exciting and so unexpected," Hamill said.

Te 61-year-old actor said he and Ford hadn't signed any contracts yet but there were plans to meet with writer Michael Arndt, Lucasfilms' Kathleen Kennedy soon.

Prior to that meeting with the screenwriter, Hamill was only able to guess what Arndt's plans for his character would be.

"I'm assuming, because I haven't talked to the writers, that these movies would be about our offspring - like my character would be sort of in the Obi-Wan (Kenobi) range ... I'm going to be a lonely old hermit living out in some kind of desert igloo with a couple of robots."

Although the decision was in Arndt's hands, Hamill told Lucas how he would like the new movies to be.

"I said to George that I wanted to go back to the way it was, in the sense that ours was much more carefree and lighthearted and humorous - in my opinion, anyway," said Hamill.

"And another thing I'd want to make sure of is 'are we going to have the whole gang back'? Are Carrie and Harrison and Billy Dee and Tony Daniels, everybody that's around from the original [returning]? I want to make sure everybody's on board here, rather than just one."

- © Fairfax NZ News