Hayden Christensen Reflects Back on Anakin’s Fall to the Dark Side
Anakin Skywalker falling to the Dark Side is the pivotal moment in Star Wars history. Almost every subsequent story that Lucasfilm has told has connected back to that moment in one way or another.
While Anakin’s arc was the vision of George Lucas, Hayden Christensen was responsible for bringing Anakin’s inner struggle, conflict, and eventual fall into darkness to the big screen.
In a recent interview with Empire, Christensen reflected back on his time portraying Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy and portraying a Jedi hero falling into the depths of despair.
Leaning on George Lucas
The first moment that Anakin Skywalker begins to show shades of Darth Vader is when he slaughters the Tusken Raiders. According to Christensen, finding the right tone for the scene was difficult.
“Yeah, he has somewhat of an emotional breakdown. That’s kind of the first time we see that there’s actually something very unstable about this character. That was a big scene. I remember filming it and trying to find the right moment for these sorts of emotional outbursts to come. And I remember at one point, feeling like I was not finding it. So we took a little reprieve from the set and I walked away, and I went back to my dressing room to try to collect myself and think about what I was doing,” he recalls.
Luckily, George Lucas was there to talk him through it.
“George, of his own volition, came over. He knew that I was having a tough time with the scene. And I just remember how gracious he was with me, talking me through where we were at, small adjustments that he was looking for. We were very close. And he just did it in a very sincere and heartfelt way. It was a moment where we really connected, and it was a bonding moment for us. I felt like I had the insight that I needed, and then we both walked back to set together and we did the scene that you’ve got in the film.”
Giving Anakin Sith Eyes
Anakin’s final decision to embrace the Dark Side and forsake the Jedi Order comes when he saves Emperor Palpatine from Mace Windu, cutting off his Jedi Brethren’s arm. It was a moment that Christensen spent weeks preparing for.
“That scene is the tipping point in Anakin’s fall to the dark side. He has Mace Windu and Darth Sidious, Jedi and Sith, both pleading his allegiance and he has to make a choice. When we were filming that scene, George spoke about how Anakin was conflicted but not yet corrupted, and that he still wanted to do the right thing,” he explains.
Eventually, it was Christensen, not Lucas, who would provide the key visual clue that Anakin had fallen.
“It needed an observable shift in character and this was actually the origin of George and I discussing giving Anakin Sith eyes. Originally, there was no mention of it and George was initially against the idea when I brought it up. I loved the visual of Sith eyes and thought it could make sense: Darth Maul had them and Sidious has them. George responded saying that Count Dooku didn’t, and I thought that was the end of that. A few days later he came back to me and said he thought about it some more and now liked the idea of Sith eyes – but not for that scene. I think that was because it would have misinformed things. Anakin’s fall to the dark side isn’t just about good and evil and ideological views; it’s also about timing and circumstance.”
The Slaughter of the Younglings
Finally, there was the moment that Anakin Skywalker solidified himself as Darth Vader — the slaughter of the younglings at the Jedi Temple. Both Lucas and Christensen knew that the scene was important, however, in order to the reaction from the younglings that he wanted, Christensen took matters into his own hands.
“When we were filming that, we were having a hard time getting the reaction that we wanted from the kid. And so I shouted or growled at him because we needed a genuine moment of him being startled. It got the response that we needed, and it makes that scene work really well.”
Years later, Christensen would apologize.
“Yeah. I saw him years later. I said, ‘Sorry about how that went.'”