Crowds mob Hollywood Boulevard as Mark Hamill cements star on Walk of Fame

When Mark Hamill showed up in Hollywood on Thursday to cement his star on the Walk of Fame, the Force was with him — along with a crowd of thousands.

Though Los Angeles police don’t always need to conduct traffic control or shut down streets in the tourist-saturated district for Walk of Fame star ceremonies, Hamill is different, said Lt. Mark Chong. A couple thousand onlookers were expected to witness the event, police say.

Even some of the officers who are working at the scene are fans of the “Star Wars” movies, Chong said.

“I’m one of them,” he added.

More than a dozen officers were in the area doing traffic and crowd control for throngs of “Star Wars” fans who flooded the area in front of El Capitan Theatre on Thursday morning to watch the ceremony and catch a glimpse of Hamill and other “Star Wars” royalty, such as Harrison Ford and George Lucas.

“Mark Hamill is a character that can’t be written,” Lucas said to cheering crowds. “He’s extremely enthusiastic about everything he does and that’s exactly what I was looking for when I was looking for Luke Skywalker.”

Hamill’s ceremony got plenty of pre-publicity after the man best known for playing Luke Skywalker faked jackhammering Jimmy Kimmel’s star outside the El Capitan Theatre to make way for his own.

When it finally came time for Hamill to accept the star and speak to fans, the crowd roared with cheers as two Stormtroopers stood at the foot of the lectern, standing guard.

“You are with me through thick and thin and the highs and the lows and everywhere in between. If it wasn’t for the public I’d be nowhere,” Hamill told crowd. “From Jedi to Joker and back again, it’s been a fantastic ride. And may the Force be with all of you.”

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

UPDATES:

12:45 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Mark Hamill and George Lucas.

This article was originally published at 11:50 a.m.