Ever since it was announced he would play the antihero of the dark, romantic Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones, Hayden Christensen has been feeling everyone's eyes on him. Here he reveals how he's been dealing with the pressure, while George Lucas and other Star Wars crew explain why they've entrusted their golden franchise to a newcomer from Canada.
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Jaws dropped inside and outside of Hollywood back in 2000, when, after months of deliberation, it was announced that 19-year-old near-unknown Hayden Christensen had just landed the part of the young, romantic, pre-evil version of the most feared specter to ever hit screens, Darth Vader, in the second prequel of Star Wars. Outside the Industry, nobody had a clue who this kid was. There were plenty of people in Hollywood who'd heard of Christensen--he was one of the many boys in Sofia Coppola's directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides--but they couldn't comprehend how an actor with so few credits to his name could have won such a crucial role. Christensen was the hot subject at showbiz cocktail parties. Many felt it was Leonardo DiCaprio's role, though it was never clear if DiCaprio actually wanted it (after being thrown by the huge success of Titanic, why would he throw himself from the frying pan into the fire?). Some thought Heath Ledger, Paul Walker, Joshua Jackson,Jonathan Jackson, Tobey Maguire, Chris Klein or Ryan Phillippe--all actors who already had a massive teen following--were worthy of the role.
A number of people recognized the intelligence of casting a fresh face--it was not such a bad idea to have audiences wonder about who Hayden was, when they had wondered so long what the young Vader might be like. But one could argue that Hayden Christensen became as much a marked man as a made man when Lucas announced that he had gotten the part. Overnight, Christensen's face, credits and talent became the target of scrutiny by the press. The shock waves subsided temporarily while Christensen was off for months in Australia shooting Episode II opposite Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson. But tremors erupted all over again when the press sniffed out a purportedly hot off-the-set romance between Christensen and Portman, and Star Wars fans as well as moviegoers in general grew even more curious about him.
Finally, in the fall of 2001, more than a year after he won the role of Anakin Skywalker, Christensen was able to show a bit of the substance behind the massive speculation. Starring as the emotionally conflicted teenage son of a terminally ill architect played by Kevin Kline in the little drama Life as a House, Christensen revealed himself to be soulful, edgy and, above all, capable. When awards season swept in, he received a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe nomination, and the National Board of Review and this magazine both gave him their male "Breakthrough of the Year" awards.
When Hayden Christensen, now 21, arrives to meet me for lunch, he appears to be someone for whom anonymity might not be private enough. He looks suspiciously like a person who wishes he could just vanish. He ambles onto the outdoor terrace of this comfortable, downscale and off-the-beaten-track restaurant with his jacket collar turned up to the edge of his chin and a baseball cap yanked down almost to brow level.
"It's funny," he tells me as we sit down together. "I have a friend in from out of town meeting with different agencies, just trying to get his career on track. I had to stop myself from giving advice because my experiences so far are not really an accurate portrayal of what a typical actor goes through when he first comes to Los Angeles. Usually, there's a progression and development within the Industry, you know?"
Here's what Christensen's warp-speed ascension looked like. He grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and was interested in acting by the time he was 13. His older brother Tove had appeared in writer-director Robert Towne's 1998 film Without Limits before going into producing, and his sister, now a Canadian martial arts champion, had done some acting as well. Christensen got a few commercials, then played a boy named Skip on the TV series "Family Passions." Next came tiny parts in the films Street Law and John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness and a handful of TV movies, including Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story. His mini break came when he costarred opposite Josh Hartnett and Kirsten Dunst in The Virgin Suicides, which led to the network movie Trapped in a Purple Haze (which starred his friend Jonathan Jackson) and the series "Higher Ground." And, then, without much further ado, he was suddenly Anakin Skywalker.
Lucasfilm casting director Robin Gurland insists she and the big boss cast their net far and wide when they set out to find their Anakin. As many as 400 candidates were being looked at. "One of the great joys of working with George Lucas is that he allows you to do your job," says Gurland. "Leonardo DiCaprio was not discounted, but neither was any appropriate actor in America, England, Canada or Australia." Christensen's managerial team set up an audition for him with Lucas and company in Los Angeles, and he met Gurland for half an hour, during which their conversation was videotaped. Lucas was not present.
"Hayden opened the door, walked in and, all of a sudden, I thought, 'Now this could be interesting,'" says Gurland. "He hadn't had all that much experience aside from 'Higher Ground,' but when I peeked at him through the camera, I thought, 'Oh, this is looking very good.' I knew I wanted to screen test him with Natalie Portman, which is something we wound up doing with only four actors. When Hayden left that first meeting, I called George at the ranch and said, 'Anakin just left the room.'"
About a month later, Christensen got word that director George Lucas had seen the tape and was interested in meeting him. But Christensen would have to pay for his own airfare from Canada to San Francisco and even his own cab fare from the airport to Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. "My family is supportive of everything I do," says Christensen, "but they were hesitant because I was asked to pay for my trip. To me, it seemed worth it just to meet George. So, I flew out there, met him and sat there in silence for the first 45 seconds while he looked down at my resume, then back up at me, then back down at the resume. He said nothing, either. Then he started asking questions about my work. Nothing about Star Wars, though.
"At this stage of the auditioning process," continues Christensen, "if you're going to be the one, the meeting usually ends with something like, 'I really like you and think you could be right for this.' At the end of this meeting, though, it was like, 'Thanks for coming. Nice to meet ya. Take care.' The casting director was like, 'Thanks for coming. The car's waiting for you outside.'"
Was he crushed? "No," says Christensen. "I generally go home after auditions with my tail between my legs, but this time, I thought, At least I can go home and brag about my experience with George Lucas."
Robin Gurland laughs at hearing how Christensen experienced their interaction. "I thought I was giving Hayden really strong signals," she says. "I was totally spun around by him. He's a stunning actor with so much going on inside. What set him apart was just that he has--and this is such an overused phrase--'it,' that certain something that means you can't take your eyes off him no matter who he's doing a scene with."
After the meeting, the Skywalker camp informed the Christensen camp that Lucas liked the actor, but wasn't convinced he could look and act convincingly mature enough to also tackle Episode III (due in theaters in 2005), in which Darth Vader is supposed to be 30 years old. Although a date and location for a screen test were set up for him and Portman, Christensen pretty much felt he was just along for the ride.
"Up until three weeks before the test, everyone was saying the part was going to Leonardo DiCaprio," says Christensen, "and that they were just doing the tests to convince the public they were actually looking at other people. The impression I was under was that the role was always meant for Leonardo. But they told me George liked me because I had talked to him on some kind of real level, that I didn't treat him like the almighty George Lucas. When you get to the level of success George has gotten to, it's hard not to have people laugh at a joke when it's not funny. I wasn't doing that."
When Lucas did a screen test of Christensen and Portman, he had them read scenes that hinted at the passionate quality of the relationship between Anakin and Padmé. An insider who saw the test said, "Watching it, you could feel the electricity between Hayden and Natalie. That didn't happen with the other guys who tested." For his part, Christensen says he found Portman professional. "She was very much, 'Hi, nice to meet you, let's go to work,'" he says. "She was mostly off making calls on her cell phone.
"The whole time, I never really thought it was going to happen for me," Christensen continues. "I was just so enthralled I'd gotten that far. Natalie told me that Ryan Phillippe had also tested, and I remember the day I got almost definitive word that Ryan was the one George Lucas had chosen."
Christensen should well remember that particular day, because the following day, his management team called him in Toronto and roused him from sleep with the news that he'd snagged the role.
"Whenever you're casting, you're first and foremost looking for a good actor," says George Lucas, "somebody who is very talented and has a certain quality about them. Then you go to the next level where you're looking for somebody who fits the character. And in this particular case I was looking for somebody who was very boyish, funny, sexy, personable and young, but someone who had an edge to them. I had to cast with the third film in mind--when Anakin is much more like Darth Vader."
Having agonized over the audition process for several months, Christensen went into a semi-altered state when he got the part. "I have an apartment on the 22nd floor of a high rise and I got out of bed, went out on the porch and stood in the morning breeze for probably an hour," he recalls. "I didn't know what to feel, it was so overwhelming. When I came back in, my roommate was standing there and I just made a gesture of raising a lightsaber. He gave me a huge hug, jumped on me and started screaming profanities. He was a DJ and we've got a turntable at our place, so I called my mom and my roommate put on the Star Wars album and turned the volume up full, so that was the first thing she heard when she picked up the phone. She started crying and I heard this domino effect all around my house of people screaming."
Once the euphoria wore off, did panic set in? "I just said to myself, These are smart people who must know what they're doing by giving me the part,'" Christensen says as he shakes his head. "In the end, I wasn't nervous at all but a lot of that had to do with me finally finding the character of Anakin, who I saw as someone who existed in a very dark place. I was able to shut out all my insecurities and just be in that powerful place. I think that's how I was able to overcome the fear and anxiety of being in a role that comes with such overwhelmingly high expectations."
Given the sort of director George Lucas is, Christensen's self-reliance was a valuable asset. "George doesn't have time to sit down and talk with you for an hour about your motivation, your tactics, what you need to accomplish," he says. "There's so much else for him to think about. When he gave me direction, it was extremely specific and helpful. You're taking direction from the man who envisioned your character and dreamed up this whole crazy universe. So, on many levels, if you're able to get a 'We got that one,' then you know you got it. There's no questioning him."
Still, the strains of working against blue screens and opposite actors in fur suits and latex masks take their toll. There were rumors from the set of Episode II that Natalie Portman felt so lost and upset during filming that she broke down and cried at one point. McGregor, word has it, periodically became downright unruly. True? "I don't know anything about Natalie crying," says Christensen, "but, in terms of Ewan, yeah, that's kind of the impression I got, too. I can't really comment on his frustrations but I think they're obvious ones. I don't blame him for anything he did. Ewan is a highly trained actor who comes from the theater. For him to be challenged and to have to deal with the struggles that he does sometimes feel are unfair--like having to submit to and understand that on a film like this, our involvement as actors, even though it's extremely necessary, doesn't have the same importance here as it does on a different kind of film. Making a film like this demands a certain level of trust among everyone involved, especially actor to actor, because so much of its coming to life happens at ILM with special effects. So much is superimposed later, you're never sure what they're going to put there and you have to trust that they're not going to make you look stupid. It's a great leap of faith required."
McGregor, known as one of the few actors in Hollywood who's extremely supportive of his costars and who doesn't play power games on sets, was especially helpful to his relatively green costar. "I really asked a lot of Ewan," says Christensen, "like how I should approach certain scenes and how to react to a nonactor like a droid. He and the stunt coordinator, Nick Gillard, were kind of my soul mates on the film. We were each others' saviors. We'd just go out, escape it all and enjoy ourselves. We played a good many games of pool together. I've stayed good friends with both of them and when I go to London, I stay with Ewan and we all hang out."
Of course, it's the hanging out he might have done with Natalie Portman that people are far more curious about. Actors who play lovers onscreen often hook up, and even if they don't, the tabloids say they do. In the case of Star Wars, gossip columnists never stopped speculating about an affair between Portman and Christensen. "It was really bizarre," he says. "I'm still getting asked in interviewers, 'So are you and Natalie an item?' You can't blame them for their curiosity. My whole philosophy is that if they ask questions about things that aren't true, I'm OK with it. If they start asking about things that are true then I'll start to worry."
Even if there was nothing between them in real life, are the scenes between them steamy? "Steamy?" he repeats, grinning. "I don't know if you can do that in a Star Wars movie and I think George is pretty aware of that. The [relationship] is depicted in a very classical way: at times, it's almost sort of melodramatic and over-the-top with how passionate these people are for each other. It's definitely not the way you'd see people meet and fall in love in a contemporary movie. It works with the whole rest of the film. This movie encompasses many different themes, but it's really a love story at the heart of it."
It is not, however, a sugar-coated love story. "It has a dark feel to it," says Christensen. "The story itself is darker and the love story is darker, almost to parallel the decline of the Republic. I think it was a conscious choice to make Episode I so colorful, but I think George is working away from that in this film."
To hear Lucas talk about it, Christensen turned out to be the right choice in this endeavor. "For Episode II, Hayden had to balance his character. He had to have a sense of humor and be warm enough for Padme to fall in love with him, yet have a dark side. It's a difficult thing to do. Hayden was able to pull it off very well."
Now that Christensen could well become a gigantic movie star, and perhaps a romantic idol, his own romantic history takes on a new dimension of interest. So, who was his first romantic crush? "I was 13 and I acted in a Movie of the Week [No Greater Love] with a woman, not a girl, named Kelly Rutherford," says Christensen. "She was the kindest, most beautiful woman I'd ever met then. I was completely smitten by her and kept staring at her with these blank starry eyes and a big smile. We're friends now. I didn't really date at all when I was in high school. I mean, forget about 'boyfriend and girlfriend.' When it even came to holding a girl's hand, I was extremely shy. When I was 16 and we lived in Toronto, there was this girl in Montreal who I had a long-distance romance with. She was kind of like my first girlfriend. On the weekend, I'd commute back and forth on the train to Montreal and that was really my first taste of being in love. It dissipated when I moved away from home. The point I'm making is that I've never really broken up with a girl or had a girl break up with me. There's never been such a defined relationship, so it wasn't necessary. My experience with girls has always been very genuine but, up until recently, I was always kind of overly self-aware, which made it hard to reach out to someone else and be comfortable with opening up."
Since he finds exposure so uncomfortable, how does he propose to survive the onslaught of publicity he is about to receive for years to come? "I think that's why I live at home still," he says, quietly. "I live with my parents in a small suburban town north of the city. It's an easy escape, a way I don't really have to feel the reality of others' opinions. It's such a struggle to protect your integrity and dignity in this industry. I haven't gotten the worst of it yet, but I can feel it. They really want to attack your morality and your beliefs. They need you to give up a certain part of yourself before they'll initiate you into 'stardom.' I had a very small life before this. I've always been kind of a hermit. I find my joy in the little things they want to take away from me. Prior to all this, I took pleasure from being the observer. Now I'm the observed."
Christensen has already become skeptical about people's motivation for befriending him. "I've had to realize just recently that someone I thought had nothing but good intentions was otherwise," he says. "Someone I thought was a friend was going around trying to capitalize on his relationship with me. It sucks. It's really hard to know how to deal with that. You find you accept a certain level of numbness. You desensitize yourself. Everyone has three good friends that you know are just solid but when it comes to people outside that circle, it's probably not going to work."
This sounds like the strategy of a guy who wasn't even inclined to be voted most popular in his class. "They say acting is the shy man's revenge, right?" he laughs. "I had a hard time talking to people. I started playing hockey when I was six and found myself surrounded with kids who were far more outgoing. I felt ostracized from the group I was trying to associate with. So I daydreamed."
Christensen's childhood fantasy of choice, he tells me, ran along the lines of the classic Curious George books. "Sometimes, I'd live vicariously through Curious George," he says, "I loved him, still do. I have all the books. I just bought the really fat compilation book of the first 10 volumes, which is a great book."
Curious George was apparently just a small part of a more elaborate world of whimsy. "I was convinced money literally grew on trees," he says. "My sister would wake up before me in the morning and Scotch tape pennies to the leaves of trees in the back yard. I'd wake up and pick the pennies off the trees."
Now that he's become a high-paid movie star, it is perhaps once again possible to believe that money grows on trees? "No," says Christensen. "I'm relatively modest when it comes to my budget. I don't rent some lavish penthouse apartment. I've had the same pearl white 1986 Jaguar XJC I've had since I was a kid, which I love even though it breaks down a lot. I got myself a big TV, surround sound and a DVD player, but that's about it."
Christensen has clearly not been cashing in on his Star Wars buzz to get the big Hollywood money jobs. The last acting job he took was the low-paying stage gig in the London production of Kenneth Lonergan's play This Is Our Youth, something Ewan McGregor urged him to do. In it, Christensen costarred with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anna Paquin as a wealthy criminal lout. After that he met with several household-name film directors about projects that will fill his time .and expand his horizons before he's drafted for Star Wars duty again. And then, there is the short list of movie projects Christensen and his brother Tove hope to launch together as part of their deal with New Line. "When I was 16, I adapted a book I love into a screenplay and right after I finished it, I said, 'I'm going to act in this, direct it and produce it.' In a year or two, one of the three or four things that my brother and I are passionate about could be happening."
With so much about to change in his life, Christensen prefers to keep his goals simple. "All I want is all what my mother wanted for me when she raised me--to be happy. For that, I don't need to be in a relationship. I don't need to have a certain level of respect. I just want to care very much about what I do and be kind to everyone in the process. It's important that I can feel that. That's happiness."
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Michelle Pfeiffer for the April issue of Movieline.