CELEBRATE THE FOURTH: Actors who appeared in the Star Wars franchise celebrated Star Wars Day on social media on Tuesday.
May 4 is celebrated annually by fans of the movie series as it is a pun on the famous catchphrase, "May the force be with you".
Mark Hamill, 69, who played Luke Skywalker, one of the most iconic characters, tweeted: "I'm beginning to accept the fact I'll probably never do another movie that gets its own day." He also uploaded a 1970s movie poster and added the hashtag, #MayTheFourthBeWithYou_ Once_In_A_Lifetime.
The original Star Wars movie in 1977, created by director-producer George Lucas, has spawned a whole media franchise.
Actress Natalie Portman, 39, who played Padme Amidala in the prequel trilogy (1999 to 2005), shared a photo of her with Ahmed Best, who voiced Jar Jar Binks. "Throwback to the Blue Mountains with my forever friend @bestahmed - while shooting episode 2 in Sydney, 20 years ago," she wrote in her Instagram post.
A heartwarming post came from actress Billie Lourd, 28, the only child of the late Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia. Fisher died in 2016 of cardiac arrest at age 60.
Lourd, who played Lieutenant Connix in the sequel trilogy (2015 to 2019), shared two photos of her baby son, Kingston Fisher, on Instagram. In one, he was watching his grandmother on a laptop and wearing a Princess Leia crochet hat. In the other, he wore a onesie with Princess Leia pointing a gun.
Other stars who marked the unofficial Star Wars day include Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca) and Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka Tano).
Dawson, 41, who appeared in the second season of The Mandalorian (2019 to present), wrote: "I just turned eight years old when the original Star Wars came out... It made me believe in the power of underdogs in a righteous cause; it affirmed to me the limitless strength of committed friendships, and expanded my sense of the magic and mystery of the universe. And yes, the Force spoke to my burgeoning sense of faith and the connectedness of all things."
