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Galactic News
Friday June
28,
2002
Homing Beacon
#63
The latest Homing Beacon has arrived, and today we get to talk about the Dark Side! "He has a great capacity to have a brooding dark side," says Writer / Director George Lucas, describing Hayden Christensen. "He's very good with anger, and those kind of qualities, which are not only important for this film, but are even more important for the next film. I was casting for the arc of this character, not just how he was able to play it in this one. The boyish qualities start to drift away in the next film."
When landing the role of Anakin, Christensen's research materials were the four previous films of the Star Wars series. "There's only so much you can draw from a man behind a mask," said Christensen. "But I wanted to bring some of the monotone aspect of the way he delivered his lines to my character, to a lesser degree, just so you can see where he was going. Also, there were certain times when I'd move my hands the way he would to indicate certain physical sensibilities that were to come."
To further school himself in the way of the galaxy, Christensen watched Episode I every weekend during shooting. "It was more to get used to the way people talk in the Star Wars universe," he explains. "It's not the way normal people speak, so the delivery and the speech patterns are something that I was trying to have constantly imposed on my own psyche so I could be comfortable with it."
Christensen also carefully eyed Jake Lloyd's performance as the boy Anakin, looking for ways to bridge a character pure in heart to one destined for darkness. The scene in which Anakin confesses his first irrevocable step to the dark side merged both characteristics. "In the telling of it, for me, it was a chance for me to justify Anakin's younger more immature sensibilities," says Christensen. "The fact that he can do this horrific act, but in the retelling of it, he would break down the same way a child would ... that was something we were consciously aware of when we were filming it."
As far as Anakin's ultimate fate, Hayden doesn't have any insights other than what is commonly known about the rise of Vader. "I can really only extrapolate on what's been said in the latter part of the saga," he says. "I murder all the Jedi and there has to be some falling out between Obi-Wan and I that leads to a fight scene. Aside from that, the only thing that I ever nag at George is whether or not I'm going to get to wear Darth Vader's outfit. And he gives me a 'wink wink, nudge nudge.'"