Hayden Christensen Never Though He Would Get to Play Anakin Skywalker- Especially After Leonardo DiCaprio was in the Picture
Over two decades after first playing Anakin Skywalker, Hayden Christensen has finally been embraced and beloved by the Star Wars fan base.
The actor recieved a hero’s welcome when reprising his iconic role for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka, but it wasn’t always this way.
Photo: Parade
Trying Out For Anakin
In a new interview with Empire, Christensen reflected back on his time as Anakin Skywalker and admitted that when he tried out for the role, he never even thought it was possible he would get it. Especially after he heard that Leonardo DiCaprio was up for the role.
Star Wars Episode II Attack Of The Clones staring Ewan McGregor & Hayden Christensen
“I had heard that they’d met with Leonardo and a bunch of other actors,” Christensen recently told Empire magazine. “That just confirmed my thought that the role would go to another actor. Through the entire auditioning process I had told myself, from day one, that I wasn’t going to get the part. It just wasn’t a possibility. And I think that probably helped me a lot, because it just freed me up in a lot of ways. And so it really came as a surprise to me when I got the part.” “I had heard that they’d met with Leonardo and a bunch of other actors,” Christensen recalled.
Photo: Also Lucasfilms
“That just confirmed my thought that the role would go to another actor. Through the entire auditioning process I had told myself, from day one, that I wasn’t going to get the part. It just wasn’t a possibility. And I think that probably helped me a lot, because it just freed me up in a lot of ways. And so it really came as a surprise to me when I got the part.”
Handling The Critics
While fans have come to embrace both Christensen and the Star Wars prequel trilogy as a whole, that was not always the case. Initially, the actor found himself in the midst of a firestorm.
Photo: Lucasfilms
“The character was criticized, my performance was criticized, and that part sucked,” he told Empire. “But I also felt like I had some context that perhaps helped a little bit. When ‘Episode I’ came out, there was a lot of excitement that they were making a new ‘Star Wars,’ and it was going to be the backstory of Darth Vader. But I had friends that were upset that the character was starting off as this young kid. And I watched the film, and I loved it. It was everything I wanted and more. And I didn’t understand the disconnect between the movie that I saw, and the negativity in some of the reviews.”
Looking back now, Christensen analyzes the poor reviews more philosophically.
Photo: Lucasfilms
“In a way that sort of criticism, I think, comes from a certain failure of their own suspension of disbelief,” Christensen continued. “If you’re gonna go sit in a theater, and the opening scroll starts with, ‘A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,’ that’s setting the stage that anything is possible. These people don’t need to sound and behave the way that we might expect. And if you’re going to sit down and think that you’re getting something that is of our current zeitgeist, then you’re setting yourself up for something else. You know what I mean?”
A Hero’s Return
As the generation of fans who grew up with the Star Wars prequel trilogy have become adults, both the films and Hayden Christensen himself have become beloved.
Photo: HollywoodReporter.com
The actor consistently receives heroic welcomes at Star Wars events, and his return for both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka was lauded by fans and critics alike. Looking back now, Christensen admits that returning to Star Wars “was a bucket-list item I didn’t even know I had.”
Photo: Star Wars
It’s been a remarkable experience. And just a very heartwarming one. The journey that I’ve been on with Star Wars over the last 20 plus years… it’s been a wild ride, and where we’re at now is really meaningful to me. I think that those movies have held up well over time. It feels like vindication for the work that we did. Everyone that worked on those movies thought that we were part of something special. We all wanted to do our very best work, and we cared a lot about it. And so to see the response from the fans now, it’s very cool.”
Photo: Lucasfilm
In the end, Christensen’s patience with Star Wars fans paid off.
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