“We were filming a scene in Spain and somehow the local newspaper knew the location that we were going to be at and they printed it,” he says. He embraced the Star Wars fandom as much as he could, but at times it was overbearing. In May 2000, Christensen was cast as Anakin Skywalker, allegedly beating Leonardo DiCaprio to the role and making him one of Hollywood’s hottest young properties. I think that was probably working in my favour, at the time, because I wasn’t really taking it too seriously.” I was just excited to get to go and meet George Lucas. “Even outside of his work on Star Wars.” When he was a teenager his parents had bought him The Creative Impulse, a book about Lucas and his cultural influence. “I was a big admirer of George Lucas’s,” says Christensen. “My father especially.” But his work on the TV series Higher Ground, in which he played a teenager who had been molested by his stepmother, got him noticed, and he was summoned to Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch to audition for Star Wars. His parents “weren’t so keen on it at the time”, Christensen remembers. And I left high school prematurely to pursue my acting ambitions.” “I was maybe 16 or so and I thought: ‘Hey, I want to be an actor.’ And that was kind of it for me. His original plan was to go to university on a tennis scholarship, but that soon changed. While accompanying her to an agent meeting, the seven-year-old Christensen was spotted by a talent scout and started doing adverts, like his sister. It was his older sister, a child actor herself, who inadvertently got him into acting. He was the second youngest of four children and remembers his older brother having a great reverence for Star Wars – bedsheets and toys scattered around the house, all declared off limits to younger siblings. It was “a pretty normal childhood”, with his attention dominated by sport – mainly tennis and hockey, both at competitive levels. Photograph: Lucasfilm/AllstarĬhristensen, 41, was born in Vancouver, four years after the first Star Wars movie was released, and grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. These characters really do belong to everybody.”Ĭhristensen with Ewan McGregor in Attack of the Clones, 2002. “I think it just goes back to the sort of ownership that people feel towards these characters,” Christensen suggests today. They just don’t like the character,” Lucas said when Revenge of the Sith came out. Even though George Lucas had directed and co-written the movies, Christensen became the lightning rod for their resentment. And many of them couldn’t stomach seeing Darth Vader portrayed as a petulant, whiny brat. When he took on the roles of Anakin Skywalker and Skywalker’s later incarnation, Darth Vader, in the Star Wars prequels Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005), fans of the franchise had had a quarter of a century in which to form their ideas about the characters. And, of course, she’s aware of my involvement in them.”Ĭhristensen’s hesitancy is perhaps to be expected. “I know! I know! I feel like I’m probably dragging my feet a little bit at this point, because all of her friends have seen the movies. “I have a seven-year old-daughter I have not shown her Star Wars,” the actor says, as though he has just admitted a shameful secret. Obi-Wan Kenobi is currently streaming on Disney+.H ayden Christensen has a confession to make. Sign up for Us Weekly's free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more! … It’s an honor to get to wear but definitely the best part is seeing people’s reactions when they see Vader.” “I got the call I was shocked and in disbelief. I was living in Vancouver at the time, and it was a long audition process,” the Shattered Glass star said on Friday of joining the franchise. “I was in high school, like, a year before doing school plays. Anakin, who was eventually revealed to be notorious villain Darth Vader, returned in Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series opposite Ewan McGregor. Todd Owyoung/NBCĬhristensen - who dated the Take Two alum between 20 - rose to fame playing Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, including 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Hayden Christensen during an interview with Jimmy Fallon on June 24, 2022.
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