Hayden Christensen Thought He’d Lose Anakin Skywalker Role When He Heard Leonardo DiCaprio Was Up for the Role

Hayden Christensen didn’t think he stood a chance of landing the role of Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel films. Christensen was not really a well-known actor, and when he heard that Leonardo DiCaprio was being courted by Lucasfilm, Christensen thought there was no way he was going to get the role. During an interview with Empire magazine, the actor explained:

“I had heard that they’d met with Leonardo and a bunch of other actors. 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.”

There’s no doubt that was an exciting call to get! However, his casting and performance were met with a lot of backlash. Fans have since come to embrace him, but when talking about the backlash he said:

“The character was criticized, my performance was criticized, and that part sucked. 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.”

We went on to expand on the criticism of the film, saying:

“In a way that sort of criticism, I think, comes from a certain failure of their own suspension of disbelief. f 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?”

Now, fans are excited when Christensen reprises his role as Vader. He’s celebrated by fans more than he’s criticized. There was a time when I never thought that Christensen would play Vader again, now I expect it. What were your initial thoughts on the actor initially being cast in the role?