Friday, May 12, 2000
The New Anakin
Source - starwars.com

Hayden Christensen, a 19-year-old Canadian actor, has been selected as the new Anakin Skywalker for Episodes II and III of the Star Wars saga, filling a key role that has been played by actors ranging from then eight-year-old Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace to 82-year-old Sebastian Shaw in Return of the Jedi.

I was just waking up and my roommate walked in and handed me the phone and it was my agent and manager, and they were pretty excited, so I knew as soon as I got on the phone," Christensen said. " I walked outside just stunned and in disbelief. I called my mom first thing, and my roommate started blaring the Star Wars soundtrack in the background. I didn't' want to tell my mom right off, but of course she heard the music and started flipping out," he laughed.

"Star Wars has always been big for my generation," Christensen said. "When Episode I came out my entire high school went to the theater for the first showing. It was a big event, and to be part of that now is very special.

"But it was only about a week ago that it started to hit me that I was testing for Anakin...Darth Vader! It's just been sort of hard to grasp," he added.

For writer-director George Lucas, the selection of Anakin is one more major accomplishment on the road to the start of filming of Episode II at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney next month. With the final script nearing completion, sets well underway and costumes being created, filling the role of Anakin was a much anticipated event.

"I'm looking forward to working with Hayden," Lucas said. "He did a great screen test with Natalie last weekend. He is very talented, has a great command of his craft, and I know that he has the physical and emotional attributes to play Anakin Skywalker at perhaps the most complex stage of Anakin's life."

Producer Rick McCallum, who has established his production office in Sydney, flew back for last weekend's screen tests. He also arranged for the tests to be shot with the new high-definition digital camera jointly developed by Panavision, Sony and Lucasfilm which will be used this summer in place of the traditional film for most of the Episode II's live action scenes.

He "I couldn't be happier about the selection of Hayden," McCalluCasting director Robin Gurland, who saw of Christensen, said, "Hayden has those special qualities you hope to find in an actor. He pops off the screen." She added: "And he had two of the characteristics that I was really seeking for the character of Anakin: He has the vulnerability, and he has the edginess that's needed. We really had to have that combination, and it's rare to find an actor who can go back and forth so well."

Hayden was born in Vancouver, but his family later moved to the Toronto area, where he went to school. He has a brother, 27, and two sisters, 25, and 15 years old. His parents are in the communications business.

Hayden broke into acting in an unusual way. His older sister did a commercial for Pringles (she was Junior World Trampoline Champion). When she went to get a talent agent, "there was no one to baby-sit me and I went along for the ride and they asked me if I wanted to do some commercials and I said sure," Hayden added. When he was 12 years old, Christensen had a continuing role in the first Canadian television soap opera, the daily hour-long Family Passions.

Hayden is a 6-foot-1-inch athlete who has played everything from hockey to football. He plays beach paddle tennis with his brother; works out on the trampoline; goes skateboarding, rollerblading and mountain biking; and has practiced stage fighting - a skill that Star Wars Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard is certain to hone even more. "Growing up I played competitive Triple A hockey and I played competitive tennis and hoped to get a tennis scholarship at university, but I got a bit sidetracked with acting," he said.

Hayden was most recently seen on the Fox Family Channel series Higher Ground, and is currently in the Sofia Coppola film The Virgin Suicides. But he has been acting since he was seven years old in commercials, theater and television, and has done two other films: Strike and In the Mouth of Madness. Other recent television credits include Purple Haze and Free Fall. In his spare time, Hayden plays jazz and blues on the piano even though he doesn't read music, and tries to find time for a social life with his friends.

Casting Director Gurland calls Christensen one of those actors whom it's difficult to take your eyes off of. "There is something so interesting going on behind those eyes; you just want to know more. I think that's what my initial attraction was given that he fulfilled all of the other things that I was looking for as far as his look, his age, his temperament and his innate quality. But, besides that, to me, he is just an amazingly seductive and intriguing actor."

Gurland started the actual Anakin casting process last October. Since then she met in person,or in some cases on tape when the distances were too great, 442 candidates out of hundreds of submission. She looked at intriguing submissions from as far afield as Iceland.

"There were no auditions; everything was done by meetings," Gurland said. "It was basically sitting down for 20 minutes to two hours and finding out who they are as actor and what kind of experience they have." From that group, Gurland winnowed down the possibilities to about 25, and discussed them in detail with Lucas, showing him tapes of them. After those sessions, she arranged for George to personally meet with a small group of actors for informal chats, some in Los Angeles and some at Skywalker Ranch.

The process culminated at the Main House at Skywalker Ranch last weekend for the screen test with Natalie Portman with the four finalists. "It was really a very relaxed situation," Gurland said. "George, Natalie and I would sit down and with whomever we were testing and just chitchat for a while and then do a rehearsal at the table with a scene in the style of one that would be in Episode II, although it's not one that we'll see in the film. Then the actor and Natalie would rehearse and George would give notes. When everyone felt comfortable, we'd go where we were shooting, do a blocking rehearsal and then tape until George felt he had gotten what he wanted."

Gurland said that the final decision was a difficult one,because all four candidates were so talented. "It's always a difficult process, but part of it is chemistry and how someone fits within an existing ensemble, and also and how you picture his character as the future father of already established Star Wars characters."

"Everyone was so nice last weekend that they made me feel at ease," Christensen says. "It was like a big field trip going to the Ranch."

"I'm very excited about the challenge it's going to present and really looking forward to = working with a lot of good people," he added. "It's especially exciting to work with actors such as Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor whom I've really admired. And I get to use lightsabers.. and the Force!"