DESIRING HAYDEN.NET PRESS ARCHIVE

When George Lucas plucked Hayden Christensen out of the big nowhere to star as young Darth Vader in his latest Star Wars epic, heads were scratched across the galaxy. But Christensen’s performance as a troubled teen in Life as a House should reassure doubters that Lucas knew exactly what he was doing.
Less than two years ago, who had even heard of Hayden Christensen? Sure, he’s been acting since he was 13, both here and in his native Canada, but it’s not like millions caught him as the kid who got sexually trifled with by his stepmom on the short-lived TV series “Higher Ground” or in his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part in The Virgin Suicides.

Christensen’s days of blissful anonymity are officially history. He’s about to be examined through a jeweler’s loupe in Life as a House, in which he’s very persuasive as the rebellious, sexually malleable offspring of a divorced couple, played by Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas.

To fans around the globe, though, Christensen’s appearance in that high-toned potential Oscar draw is merely an appetizer for the feast to come-his debut as Anakin Skywalker, the fledgling Darth Vader in next year’s Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Advance word is that director George Lucas has already branded him the real thing. If he’s feeling the undue weight of the Force upon his 20-year-old shoulders, Christensen scarcely shows it. Clad in casual threads topped by a baseball hat that reads “Free,” sitting at a sun-dappled table in the outdoor garden at the West Hollywood tea-and-tonic emporium Elixir, Christensen comes off as a shy, serious, soft-spoken type who’s taking a wild ride in pretty good stride.

Besides the opportunity to work with Kline, Christensen was attracted to Life as a House because of its riskiness. “The script, as written, if done wrong, could play out like one long soap opera,” he says. “It seemed it would be exciting and challenging to walk that fine line. I also felt the role was an important one-not just to the story, but to an audience who could relate to him, and feel for him. This was a real actor’s role.”

It’s quite a role, all right, one that involves a near-suicide, serious pill-popping, major parental blowouts, a bout with male prostitution, a provocative stunt in the shower with a neighbor’s daughter, hair dyed goth black and lots of eye shadow. “There’s a slight hesitation when you’re involved with something that has a certain level of risk,” he says. “But I could relate to things in the script, like my character’s insecurities, and I felt comfortable exploring some of those emotions.”

Even though it’s like he’s got a light saber pointed at his temples when it comes to revealing any Star Wars secrets, Christensen’s full of stories about the experience. “It all seems unreal, still,” he admits. “Maybe I was even a little too comfortable going in for the audition. I just felt it was too far-fetched that anything would come to fruition, so I took extra joy in getting to meet George Lucas and screen-testing opposite Natalie. Making the film was the best summer of my life. I’m part of a movie trilogy that is one of the best of all time, and I feel very special to be a part of it.”

And was getting to know Natalie Portman part of what made it so special? Choosing his words with care, he says, “She’s a good actress. She was very professional and amazing to work off. It’s easy to look at her and be absorbed by her.”

With Life as a House behind him, Christensen is considering tackling another movie and, possibly, a play in New York or Toronto before the media blitz for Star Wars. At the moment, he says, “I don’t get hassled by fans too much, but I imagine it’ll become more difficult.”

Jeez, ya think? May the Force be with him.

Hayden Chnstensen occupies an unusual space betWeen familiar and famous. Following up roles on TV’s Higher Ground and in the film The Virgin Suicides, the twenty-year-old Canadian shines in the current movie Life as a House as a hard-to-handle teen getting to know his dying father (Kevin Kline). But the dear before-and-after of Christensen’s will center around his role as Anakin Skywalker in the next two Star Wars prequels. “When I work, I become a recluse,” Says Christensen, who recently launched a production company with his older brother so that he could “take hold” of his career. “That’s why if it’s some flaky film, it’s a real waste of time.”

-Elle Magazine-

There is life before Star Wars. Here’s the skinny on Hayden Christensen.

Episode 1

Hayden Christensen needs to work on his first impression. In fact, he needs to work on making an impression, period, here in the fly-buzzed garden of a too-hip Los Angeles tea-house, where the actor is supposed to be discussing New Line Cinema’s Life as a House. The drama - written by Mark Andrus (Oscar-nominated for As Good as It Gets) and directed by Irwin Winkler (The Net) - stars Kevin Kline as George, a spiritually empty architect who finds out he’s dying of cancer and decides to spend his final months building his dream house with Sam, his pill-popping, Goth-garbed son. But for scores of Star Wars fans, the film will offer something more: their first chance to assess whether Christensen, who’ll play Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode ll - Attack of the Clones, has what it takes to wield a lightsaber. If nothing else, the actor proves in Life as a House that he can walk on the dark side; in his opening scene, Christensen wakes up, huffs paint fumes, puts his head in a noose tied to a clothes rack, and masturbates. A conspicuous first impression, worthy of discussion - if only Christensen were actually here to discuss it.

Three days later, back at the tea garden, it’s a different story. “I’m so sorry,” says Christensen, evidencing genuine, red-faced remorse and decked in a baggy sweater/T-shirt/cords ensemble. As it turns out, he has some perfectly legitimate excuses (a late-night flight from his home in Toronto, phone not hooked up in his new L.A. apartment), and with his sleepy good looks and soulful demeanor, he young actor makes it hard to hold a grudge. A soft-spoken 20-year-old with a palpable passion for acting and a panicky fear of bees (“Get away from me, I’m allergic to you!” he freaks at one point), Christensen exudes a charm and gravity that’s immediately apparent and grows only more impressive over time. “He was a little broody,” says Winkler of his initial encounter with the actor. “But I took his audition tape home and looked at it over and over again, and he just kept popping out at me. He’s just got this natural charisma, but it’s wrapped in an intriguing package.” Episode ll casting director Robin Gurland sums up the Christensen mystique this way: “It’s in the eyes. He’s on the verge of adulthood, so his face still has this innocence, but in the eyes, there’s this intelligence that’s so knowing, so mature - which makes him just perfect for Anakin.”

Some observers have even likened Christensen to a certain Rebel Without a Cause - a comparison that he embraces. “I’ve always tried to fantasize being like James Dean, which is funny given what’s being said now,” he says. “He’s probably the most natural actor to grace the screen.” Like Dean, Christensen takes his art very, very seriously. Consider his response to the old “Why acting?” question: “As a means of expression. Of reinventing yourself. To become something that you’re not. And now…I don’t know. To be honest, I’m struggling with this concept. Is an actor an artist, or is he just someone else’s puppet?”

The route Christensen has taken to such contemplation began at age 8, when his 14-year-old sister (one of three siblings) went shopping for an agent after landing a Pringles commercial. “I went along for the ride because there was no one who could babysit me,” he says. “And all of a sudden they were asking me if I wanted to do a few commercials….I said, Why not?” During his teens, he started juggling high school theater work with bit parts on TV and in movies (perhaps you caught him as Paper Boy in John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness). It was in late 1999, while playing a mopey teen on the short-lived Fox Family Channel drama High Ground, that Christensen first met with Gurland. After wowing her, the actor made two treks to Lucas’ ranch near San Francisco, once for an informal meet, once to screen-test with Queen Amidala herself, Natalie Portman. And, yes, he was nervous: On both trips, he threw up on the plane.

Yet anyone who goes into Life as a House (see review on page 48) looking for a Jedi Knight might be disappointed - especially when they see how wimpily the future Dark Lord of the Sith handles a sledgehammer. “I was just making it look like I didn’t know what I was doing,” he says. “It’s all acting.” Christensen, who got the part last fall after spending the previous summer filming Episode ll, was drawn to Life because of its script and star - not because he felt the need to establish himself before he’s forever tagged as “that Star Wars guy” (see Mark Hamill). “It was important to me that if I did a movie before Star Wars, that I’d be as unrecognizable as possible,” says Christensen. “I want to make sure [my work as Anakin] is as impactful as can be. I don’t want to detract from that by developing some persona before that film comes out.”

To prepare for his teenage waste-lad in Life, Christensen shed 25 pounds on a diet of water, salad, and vitamins. “I’m still gaining the weight back,” says the gangly actor, who isn’t helping his cause today by limiting himself to a bottle of water. Christensen also dyed his sandy-blond locks black and blue and adorned himself with fake piercings. “They would have been real if I didn’t have to do [Star Wars] reshoots right away,” he says. “I don’t think George would be too happy if I showed up with a hole in my lip.” And yet Christensen says he himself has no dark side; this is a guy who cites The Princess Bride and Disney’s Robin Hood as influences. “Sam is an absolute invention,” he says. “I had no ground on which to relate.” Indeed, unlike Sam, who would rather lock himself in his room and blast Marilyn Manson than share a second of silence with his family, Christensen boasts of an “unusually good” relationship with his parents, David (a communications exec) and Alie (with whom Hayden talks everyday). Says Winkler: “He’s probably the sweetesr kid in the world.”

While audiences are discovering Christensen in Life as a House, the actor himself will be in England for his final round of reshoots for Episode ll, which opens next May. In the seven months between not and then, he’ll read through a teetering stack of scripts, work with his brother Tove on establishing a production company, and gird himself for the publicity onslaught to come. “I try not to give it much thought - that’s how I’m dealing with it,” says Christensen. “I’m just keeping an open mind and keeping my feet on the ground.” Any chance of leaving us with a secret Star Wars tidbit or two? “Okay, okay,” he says with a sheepish laugh. He pausesm thinks of everything he could say, and then says the only thing he can. “No.”

Source: Typed by:TinaJ.

As a teenager growing up in Toronto, Hayden Christensen figured he had a good shot at getting into an American university on a tennis scholarship. But instead of wielding a racquet, he ended up unleashing his backhand with a light sabre on the set of Star Wars. You probably haven’t heard of Hayden Christensen. Not yet. T his clean-cut 20-year-old Canadian is Hollywood’s hot new discovery. Last year, in casting the next two features in the Star Wars franchise, director George Lucas picked the unknown actor from hundreds of young hopefuls to play Anakin Skywalker — the Jedi warrior who grows up to be Darth Vader. And when Entertainment Weekly devoted an issue to an “It List” of Hollywood’s 100 most creative talents, Christensen’s face was the one that graced the cover.

Of course, rocketing to fame as a Jedi action figure doesn’t guarantee an enduring career — just ask Mark Hamill, who fizzled after playing the adult Anakin’s son, Luke, in the original Star Wars. But critics are already comparing Christensen to James Dean. And long before his face starts appearing on lunch boxes with next summer’s release of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, he has proven his talent as a serious actor. In Life as a House, which opens this week, Christensen delivers a knockout performance as a troubled teen with a divorced father (Kevin Kline) who’s dying of cancer. It’s a drama about building a new house in the ruins of a broken home. It’s also a three-hankie weepie, and Christensen is its emotional detonator. “He’s astonishing,” Kline told me recently. “He’s the genuine article, and there’s nothing flash in the pan about him. I think he’s going to be the flavour of the millennium.” Kline is droll and soft-spoken, a classically trained actor not prone to showbiz superlatives. But he seems truly impressed. “You’re only as good as the people you’re playing opposite,” he says, “and Hayden just drew my best work out of me. It wasn’t one of those cases where you’re looking for that magical take from a young kid. Every take, even off camera, he gave me amazing stuff.”

Last month, Hayden and his family watched Life as a House receive a standing ovation at its world premiere during the Toronto International Film Festival. The next day, sitting on a hotel balcony high above his home town, he comes across as polite, well-spoken and circumspect. Wide blue eyes betray a wary vulnerability, but occasionally burn with movie-star intensity. There’s a scar from a hockey puck above one eye, a faint trace of Canadian branding. With a lean, six foot, one-inch frame, Christensen looks like an athlete, and as he discusses his impending stardom you can imagine him conducting post-game interviews with the diplomatic poise of a Gretzky. Asked about fame, he shrugs. “It’s not something I ever sought after. Anonymity is not something you can willingly give up. It has to be taken from you. There’s something wrong with you if you’re happy to let that part of you go.”
The third of four children, Hayden was born in Vancouver, and moved to the Toronto suburb of Thornhill with his family when he was 6. His parents run their own communications company. Hayden first bumped into show business when he was 7. He was tagging along with his older sister, Hejsa, then junior world champion trampolinist at the age of 13. She was meeting with an agent after being cast in a commercial. The agent also signed up Hayden. Studying drama in high school, he developed a passion for acting. But he was more serious about sports he played triple- A hockey and competitive tennis.

At 18, however, he landed a regular role in Higher Ground, a Fox series shot in Vancouver, as a teen who turns to drugs after being seduced by his stepmother. Schedule conflicts forced him to back out of two group auditions in Los Angeles for Star Wars. But then Lucas invited him to his Skywalker Ranch. “It was like meeting a rock star,” recalls Christensen. “He has this huge entourage that follows him around.” After a screen test with Natalie Portman, Christensen won the role, beating out Tom Hanks’ son, Colin. Shooting Star Wars two summers back was “thrilling,” Christensen recalls. “Every morning I’d get to dress up in these Jedi robes and have my light sabre hang from my belt, and it’s a very surreal feeling.” Then, to play Sam, the drug-addicted Goth in Life as a House, he had to change gears rapidly. He shed 25 lb., dropping his weight to 140. Director Irwin Winkler wanted him to appear less imposing than Kline. Christensen also had to find his way into a character much darker than the young Darth Vader. “I never went through the angst rebellion thing,” he says. “And the whole Goth thing I just could not understand — the concept of putting on blue eye shadow and wearing earrings.” Over the course of the movie, as his character reconciles with his father and helps him build his dream home on a California cliff, Christensen gets to shed the mask and strip his emotions bare. Winkler’s direction, and the script by Mark Andrus (As Good as It Gets), are contrived. But that makes the truth of the performances even more remarkable. Kline, Christensen — and Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays his mother all counteract the movie’s sentimental undertow with sharp, detailed acting. Meanwhile, Christensen, who still lives with his parents, waits for his life to change. After Star Wars hits next summer, it won’t be the same. Last week I asked if he’s had second thoughts about stardom in the sobering light of Sept 11. “If anything,” he said, “it makes me more confident that I’m doing the right thing. It makes films like Life as a House more pertinent. One of its recurring themes is that it sometimes takes something bad to happen to force something good.” Spoken like a true Jedi.

Source: Brian D. Johnson