Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is a very secretive movie, and while we did recently learn the names of the new characters featured in the first teaser trailer, there’s still an awful lot we just do not know.

Mark Hamill obviously couldn’t reveal too much about the plot in a recent interview, but he did drop plenty of other very interesting details about the highly anticipated 2015 release from director J.J. Abrams.

For a start, the actor – who is best known for playing Luke Skywalker – revealed that the droid seen in the teaser is in fact a practical creation! “They never cease to amaze me with what they’re able to come up with, you know? I said, ‘How are you ever gonna top R2-D2, the most adorable droid in movie history?’ And then they have this new one… And when they were demonstrating how they did this thing, live on set — because it’s not CGI, that’s a live prop — I was just amazed. They let me play around with it. [Laughs] I was running it all around at the creature shop up in Pinewood. I’m telling you, it’s an absolute delight. And not having thought that I’d ever go back there, to go back into that world, is just – I get the chills. It’s just so much fun.”

That’s quite the surprise, especially as we assumed BB-8 was in fact an impressive CGI creation. It should be very interesting to learn how they went about making the droid, even if we have to wait until the Blu-ray special features! Of course, even more shocking than this was the fact that none of the original Star Wars actors appeared in the teaser, something Hamill says is down to the “new era” feel of The Force Awakens.

“This is about the new generation of characters; I think that’s the most important thing,” Hamill says of this approach. “It’s the opening act of a whole new approach to the storytelling. So I never thought that the stories would be – first of all, I never thought I’d be involved in it again, period. And then when George [Lucas] said that they wanted to do more, I rightly assumed that it wouldn’t be our story, because we had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This must be our offspring and the current generation, with us there lending the kind of support that Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness did in the original. So no, that didn’t surprise me. And I mean, I’m one of those people where I just think, ‘Keep me out of it. I’ll ruin it, I’m sure!’”

The actor (who it was recently revealed will appear in The Flash next year) went on to talk about his initial trepidation about returning, and said that he would have never done so if his fellow Star Wars co-stars Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford had declined.  “[Ford] was someone that was unpredictable. I hadn’t seen him in years; I didn’t know what his feelings were. I know he’s sometimes grown impatient with people that don’t want to focus on what he’s doing currently and want to go stroll down memory lane. God knows, I’m used to that sort of thing. But who knew? And for him to jump back in so enthusiastically, I was delighted.”

“It’s a wonderful character. Everybody loves Han Solo,” he adds. Of course, everyone loves Luke Skywalker as well, but Hamill wasn’t particularly in love with his beard in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens!

“Listen: I think they look fine on other people. It’s just not me,” he confessed. “I mean, I never got used to it. But face foliage is almost a part of the costume. And it does bring a gravitas, perhaps unearned, but nevertheless, it makes a statement that they wanted to make, and I’m more than happy to oblige them.”