Hayden Christensen is a widespread name in pop culture for his role as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise. He featured in the second and the third installments of the Prequel Trilogy Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith before returning to his role in the Disney+ Star Wars shows Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka.
The Prequel Trilogy focused on Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker’s slow descent into the dark side until he ultimately becomes Darth Vader. Although the actor did a lot to make his performance as iconic as possible, Christensen’s work always resulted in a mixed reception among critics and fans.
Hayden Christensen has spoken repeatedly about his injuries while filming Star Wars. From the lightsaber battles to flying a shaky speeder, the Shattered Glass actor admitted that his role in the space opera epic was physically demanding.
How was Hayden Christensen injured during the making of Star Wars?
Lightsaber duels are significant elements in the Star Wars universe. In Star Wars Insider Magazine, Hayden Christensen stated that filming those scenes was arduous and painful. According to the Darth Vader fame, the lightsabers were cumbersome and he felt like wielding a real sword.
In the Star Wars Insider Magazine, Christensen revealed that he took a lot of time to film the iconic climactic lightsaber duel between his character and Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. He trained with his stunt coordinator Nick Gillard for one month straight to prepare the iconic scene.
Although the lightsaber duel troubled the actor a lot, he also faced problems while performing many of his other stunts. Besides the lightsaber duel, the actor was asked to ride a reek, fly a speeder, and was involved in loads of jumping and running. However, the actor claimed that despite his athletic nature, he was left with a lot of bruises.
“l have a bit of an athletic background, so l was able to pick it up. I went home with a few bruises.”
Nevertheless, Hayden Christensen’s athletic nature did not come to use when a stunt gave him an insanely painful knee. He shed light on this tale while speaking to Review Graveyard– “I did this jump into the air and landed on my foot a little funny and ended up straining my ACL in my knee.”
Additionally, the presently 43-year-old actor also shared that he maintained a strict diet routine and had to learn the choreography of the action well before the filming of Revenge of the Sith. He put on 25 pounds for his role.
Hayden Christensen was sad about the heavy criticism of his Star Wars role
Even though fans and critics now understand that the main problem in George Lucas’ Prequel Trilogy was the director’s weird dialogues and directing, Hayden Christensen was subjected to a lot of hate when Attack of the Clones came out. Many hardcore fans perceived him as an irritating individual and did not like the character.
While speaking to Empire, the Star Wars veteran shared that due to the massive cultural impact of the franchise, many people felt “a sense of ownership over them”. The actor loved what he saw on screen and could not understand why the audience felt so disconnected watching it.
“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 criticized, my performance was criticized, and that part sucked.”
Hayden Christensen has opened up to Empire magazine that he did not expect to get cast in Star Wars. After hearing that the studio was attempting to get Leonardo DiCaprio on board, Christensen did not believe that he could ever land the role in his career. However, the results were not as he expected.
The Canadian actor tried to defend the much-criticized dialogues by claiming that from the very opening scroll when it shows ‘A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away’ to the audience, it sets the “stage that anything is possible”.
It cannot be denied that his lines and performance in the Prequel Trilogy will always be debatable. Nevertheless, it must also be recognized that the actor garnered a lot of praise when he returned to the franchise in the Disney+ shows.
All the Star Wars content can be streamed on Disney+.
