“They just don’t like the character”- When George Lucas defended Hayden Christensen against Star Wars role criticism

Hayden Christensen's portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels was widely criticized at the time of the films' release. It is not very often that a master director of a blockbuster science fiction movie franchise has to defend his own choices, but George Lucas had to do just that and jump in to justify the performance of the star of the prequel series, Christensen.

In a conversation with Vanity Fair before the release of the second Star Wars prequel, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in 2005, Lucas addressed the criticism Hayden Christensen faced while playing the most famous hero turned villain in all of film history, Anakin Skywalker, or as he was known in the original trilogy (in the late 70s and 80s), Darth Vader. Hayden Christensen had played Skywalker first in 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

George Lucas told Vanity Fair that the criticism levied against Christensen was unjustified, as he was merely following the script and Lucas’ directions. Of the audience’s response to Christensen, Lucas said,

“Poor Hayden. His performance is great. They just don’t like the character.”

Per Lucas, the audience-response to Christensen’s role as Anakin Skywalker highlighted a much deeper movie-going phenomenon — audiences find it easier to relate to characters who are heroic from the get go, like Luke Skywalker from the original trilogy. Continuing, Lucas said,

“You’ll see, as this goes on, Luke is faced with the same issues and practically the same scenes that Anakin is faced with. Anakin says yes and Luke says no.”

Lucas shared that Anakin’s story is morally much more complex; the character’s sulky and “whining” nature is related to the difficulties that the character had to endure, including the abuse and death of his mother at the hands of the Tusken Raiders, which drove him to commit one of his first violent acts in Star Wars: Episode II.

Lucas wrote the character of Anakin with a Faustian bent, as someone who is willing to make a deal with the Devil. It was because of Anakin’s transformation from the ‘Chosen One’ to someone who is evil personified that the audience found it difficult to root for the character. Lucas told Vanity Fair,

"Anakin wants that power, and that is basically a bad thing. If you’re going to sell your soul to save somebody you love, that’s not a good thing. That’s, as we say in the film, unnatural. You have to accept the natural course of life. Of all things. Death is obviously the biggest of them all. Not only death for yourself but death for the things you care about.”

Vanity Fair also noted that Lucas responded to Darth Vader’s reception as the ultimate villain, clarifying that he was an individual who was merely “trapped,” and the love and faith his children showed helped him get on the path of redemption.

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Hayden Christensen on playing Anakin Skywalker

By making the prequel series more than twenty years after the first film of the original Star Wars trilogy, George Lucas effectively allowed actors who had their own relationship with the Star Wars fandom to enter into the hit science fiction franchise’s world.

In a 2024 interview with Empire, Hayden Christensen noted that he was inducted as a Star Wars fan when his older brother introduced him to the film franchise around the ages of 11 and 12. Few years later, as an 18 year old, Christensen heard about the opportunity to play Anakin Skywalker in the prequel series, and thought that he would lose out to Leonardo DiCaprio who was also in the running.

According to ScreenRant, when Christensen received confirmation of receiving the coveted role, he and his roommate dueled around their apartments with lightsaber to the soundtrack of Star Wars Episode I, in true fan fashion. As per the report, in Christensen, Lucas had found an actor who could channelize the Dark Side of the Force.

The Independent reported that when the prequel films released, Christensen and his performance as Anakin received a lot of backlash.

Christensen addressed the criticism during his conversation with Empire, and said,

“Because Star Wars has had the cultural impact that it has, these characters almost become public domain, where people feel a sense of ownership over them. The character was criticised, my performance was criticised, and that part sucked. But I also felt like I had some context that perhaps helped a little bit.”

Christensen explained that at the time, audiences went to the theaters to see Anakin’s transformation to the Dark side with a lot of baggage. He said,

"In a way that sort of criticism, I think, comes from a certain failure of their own suspension of disbelief. If you’re gonna go sit in a theatre, 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.”

Hayden Christensen did find it difficult to convey the complex moral dilemmas and emotions of the character while shooting. About working on the scene of the massacre of the Tusken Raiders, which was critical to Anakin’s transformation, Christensen said,

“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.”

Continuing, Christensen spoke about Lucas’ direction, saying,

“[Lucas] 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…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.”

Hayden Christensen has revisited his iconic role of the early 2000s when he appeared in Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

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