DESIRING HAYDEN.NET PRESS ARCHIVE

ACTOR:A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … Well, it was actually just a couple of years back, in an apartment in Canada, that an unknown named Hayden Christensen was told he had beaten out more than 400 actors for the part of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

“He’s got a certain edge to him–the same kind that James Dean and Marlon Brando had,” says director George Lucas.

The 21-year-old Christensen still needed help looking the part. “Anakin is from a desert planet, so they gave me a pretty severe tan,” says the 6’1″ actor. He was also given hair extensions to lengthen a choppy cut from an unlikely barber.

“He was like ‘I need a haircut–think you could do it?’” says his brother Tove, 29. “He’s not one of those guys who are constantly preening.”

These days, Christensen is not even bathing. Appearing last month in the London stage production of This Is Our Youth as a drug dealer with “a cleanliness problem,” he said, “I haven’t showered for two weeks. I’m making a concerted effort to smell bad, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Ever since it was announced he would play the anithero of the dark, romantic Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones, HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN has been feeling everyone’s eyes are 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.

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 cred- its 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 fol- lowing-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, w.hen 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 Lawand 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 Putple 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 oke 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 Padme. An insider who saw he test said, “Watching it, you could feel the elecricity 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 got out of bed, went out on the porch and stood in the morning breeze or 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? “Ijust 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 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 Portrnan that people are far more curious about. Actors who play lovers on screen 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 Portrnan 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 lecessary. 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 he 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 or 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 vith 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 he 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 vorld 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 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.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

With Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones out on May 16, US delivers a fast lowdown on Hayden Christensen.

HIS CHARACTER Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi knight who eventually becomes Darth Vader.

YOU’VE SEEN HIM BEFORE AS Kevin Kline’s pierced-and-pouting son in Life as a House.

WHEN HE GOT THE CALL FOR EPISODE II “As soon as I heard the voices of my manager, agents and lawyer on the phone, I assumed they weren’t all calling me up to give me the bad news. It was a week of absolute bliss.”

ON TABLOID RUMORS THAT HE’S DATING COSTAR NATALIE PORTMAN “My philosophy is that as long as it’s not true, it’s OK. As soon as they get the truth, then I’m worried.”

AND THE TRUTH IS “She’s a fine actress, which made it very easy to look at her with such adoring eyes.”

SINCE EPISODE II WRAPPED Christensen, 21, appeared on the London stage early this year in This Is Our Youth. A top British theater critic called him “absolutely riveting.”

CHEESY TIE-IN Christensen’s light-saber-wielding image will grace bags of Doritos Nacho Cheesier chips.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Star Wars Episode II’s leading man lives with Mom and Dad, thinks fame is overrated, and doesn’t have a girlfriend (!).
This boy is about to become one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and he still lives in his parents’ house in Toronto with Mom, Dad, Little Sis, a dog, a rabbit, and two parakeets. He sleeps in the same bedroom he’s occupied since the age of six. He hangs out with the same kids he hung out with in high school. And he still spends most of his free time reading. Success, it seems safe to say, has not changed Hayden Christensen.

Not so far, anyway. This May, when Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones comes out, 21-year-old Hayden will finally exit the fame waiting room he’s been in since it was announced two years ago that an “unknown” had beat out more than 400 other actors (a pool rumored to have included Ryan Phillippe, James Van Der Beek, and Leonardo DiCaprio) to win the role of Anakin Skywalker. During this time, his name has been repeated and his merits debated by fans eager to see what he’ll do with the role. His face has been splashed across magazine covers. But he’s still been able to walk down the streets unrecognized. That’s all about to change. And if what happened when Hayden was in Spain shooting the movie–”thousands upon thousands of people,” he remembers, gathered around the location creating rock-star-style chaos until the military had to be called in–is any indication, he’s really in for it. And ready, he says, if not exactly willing.

“I don’t think anyone can desire that kind of loss of anonymity,” he explains, sounding earnest and intelligent and only a tiny bit anxious. “You’d have to be a pretty deranged individual to actually want to be famous. You give up so much. But I’ll deal with it as it comes.” For Hayden, who started acting at thirteen and decided to really make a go of it after playing Hamlet at fifteen, it’s his love of the craft that makes all the other stuff worthwhile. “I enjoy the self-discovery aspect of acting,” he says, “reinventing myself and finding something out about myself through my character.”

Playing Anakin, the boy who’ll become, in Episode III, Darth Vader, has doubtless given Hayden a chance to find out about his dark side, but it’s not the first time he’s done so. His first big role was as a juvenile delinquent on the short-lived Fox Family Channel series Higher Ground. He played rough again as Kevin Kline’s son in last fall’s Life as a House, a star turn that earned him Oscar buzz. Nevertheless, when I’m sitting face-to-face with Hayden at the Teen Vogue cover shoot, this dark side is not entirely evident. Instead, he’s extremely polite and very serious (witness the quotes above). Sure, he’s got that shy smile, but I certainly don’t see the “sullen” side that George Lucas, the creator and writer of the Star Wars series, recognized immediately. “I was looking for someone charismatic, boyish, and likable who had the ability to turn bad in the next film,” Lucas says. “Hayden just had a special quality to him. He’s got a sort of James Dean edge that is perfect for the part.”

Accolades notwithstanding, Hayden says he never reads his own press, lest wild critical praise (like he received for Life) or scorn cause him to lose his confidence. “I don’t want to think about any of that,” he says. “I think it will keep me more content in this industry.” And though he’s the first to acknowledge what he humbly refers to as his “good fortune,” he plans to use it not to make an ill-advised bid for leading-teen status but rather to continue to do “character-driven work where the film is about some sort of human expression, something that comments on life.” To that end, he’s also formed a production company with his older brother, Tove, a producer, and spends much of his time searching for scripts, the kind with “stories we can build from the ground up.” Hayden’s even adapted a favorite book into a script that they hope to film someday. (He won’t say which book, as he’s currently investigating its copyright status.) “I’m kind of a workaholic,” he says with a grin. “Unfortunately it’s the only lover affair in my life right now, but it’s enough that it keeps me fully consumed and completely content. It is a love affair, definitely.”

So Hayden let slip that he’s single, but that’s about all he’ll say on the subject, though he does allow that he’d like to meet a girl with “a good head on her shoulders.” Until he does, and until he finds his next part, he’ll keep busy hanging with his hometown friends. “I’m a little reclusive, maybe,” he says. Then he’s quiet for a moment, thinking about the crush of celebrity that could be a side effect of his success. “I’ve always been like that,” he muses. Then the cloud passes and he smiles again. “So I guess maybe my job suits me.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Earthbound Hayden Christensen is the reluctant heartthrob who put off college to accept the role of a lifetime as Anakin Skywalker. Quiet, and a bit self-conscious, he says, “I don’t have any way of justifying how I got this part.”
All of teendom is buzzing about the chosen one. He is Hayden Christensen, the 21-year-old Canadian actor deemed singularly fit for the role of Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader. He is the crucial, conflicted heart of “Attack of the Clones.” And its heartthrob.

At present, he is staring miserably at the cover of Teen Vogue. “I look so.feminine,” he says of the photo-though it racily depicts him with a nubile model posed between his legs, on a beach. Doll-faced and slight, Christensen manages to look handsome even now, in old, acid-washed jeans and a nondescript sweater. He is certainly more at ease in his present confines: a dingy greenroom in London’s Garrick Theatre. Here he is appearing in Kenneth Lonergan’s play “This Is Our Youth” and avoiding magazines that feature his likeness. “It’s hard because you get into acting for-I don’t want to say noble reasons, but for the right reasons,” he says. “It’s because you appreciate the craft.” The theater also suits his mild manner. “He’s really, really quiet,” says his “Clones” costar, Natalie Portman. “When I met him, I thought, ‘This is going to be so hard.’ But then I got to know him. He’s quiet, but it’s an attractive quietness. He’s got that unnameable thing that makes you want to watch someone.”

“Out of that shyness there is a real strength,” says George Lucas. “There’s a real energy that he keeps inside.”

The original Vader never had to contend with that undignified “heartthrob” tag. “I should be so pretty,” sniffs James Earl Jones. When Jones first provided the character’s malevolent voice more than 20 years ago, Vader was shorter on cheekbones and longer on polyurethane. Back then, the Jedi-gone-bad terrorized a generation of children that included Christensen’s brother, Tove, now 29. “I think I’ve kind of ruined this trilogy for my brother a little bit,” says Christensen. “That his little brother is playing [Darth Vader] is just not cool.”

Unlike his brother, Hayden’s childhood heart was not etched with Yoda quotes. Hayden was born in 1981–four years after the release of the original “Star Wars.” “My brother introduced me to the films when I was maybe 7 or 8,” he says. “And, you know, I enjoyed them. But I didn’t watch them every Sunday.” Still, he understands their appeal. “It had such fantastical elements,” he says. “I’m sure that’s why it has a cult following.” While he did not faint at the prospect of meeting R2D2, he respects those who would.

And he knows they have their doubts about him. Can an unknown kid from Canada pull off this high-profile role? Christensen doesn’t even draw his lightsaber. “It’s just so daunting to even project my thoughts there,” he says. Instead, he destresses by talking often with his mother, Alie, who runs a communications business with his father, David.
“I think that bonds with your family are the most valuable ones,” he says. But like Luke Skywalker, Christensen was also influenced by a paternal schism. “[My dad] doesn’t have any interest in acting or in my own building of that craft,” he says. So the son pursued his life’s course without the father’s blessing.

Third in the Christensen sibling line-up, Hayden also has two sisters, Hejsa, 27, and Kaylen, 17. He played competitive hockey and tennis, but high school drama–and then a series of small TV and film roles–distracted him. “I really enjoyed the challenge of [acting],” he says.

His father was less enthusiastic. Even as Christensen was winning numerous roles, “my father didn’t have such a high respect for people trying to be somebody else, instead of bettering him[self] or herself,” he says. He began in TV-movies (Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story, Danielle Steel’s No Greater Love) and bit parts in films (1998′s “Strike!” and 1999′s “The Virgin Suicides”). When he was 18, he won the role of Scott Barringer in Fox Family’s teen drama Higher Ground. The part was a potential breakthrough–and a blow to his dad, who expected Hayden to attend college on a tennis scholarship.

“He wasn’t thrilled,” says Christensen wryly. “It was definitely the cause of some heartache.” Intending to start college after one TV season, he set off for Vancouver, where Higher Ground was filmed. But later that year, he auditioned for “Clones.” In retrospect, he admits, “I never really felt it was feasible that I was going to get the part!” When he did, he traded college plans for Jedi training. “But I am going to go back to university,” he says. “Not for [my father's] sake, but because I want to. Natalie is in university, and I have a lot of admiration for that.”

It may be awhile. Christensen has offers lined up, thanks in part to the critical praise he received for his portrayal of Sam Monroe, Kevin Kline’s surly, glue-sniffing son, in 2001′s “Life As A House”.

“There’s a scene where Kevin tells [Sam] that he’s dying,” says Irwin Winkler, the film’s director. “Hayden got so into the role that he banged his fist against the wall, and he almost broke his knuckles. That’s the kind of actor he is. He lets the character flow right through him.” Such high-placed approval–and his escalating “Star Wars” fame–have boosted activity at Hayden and Tove’s upstart production company, Forest Park Pictures, in Los Angeles. “Most likely the next film that I do will be something that my brother and I coproduce,” he says.

Christensen, however, is not in Hollywood’s thrall; home is still his parents’ Toronto house. “I have a good relationship with my family,” he says–and that includes his dad. “I don’t know if he’s necessarily proud of me,” he says. “But he’s happy for what I’ve achieved.”

So the actor who would be Vader possesses that villain’s gravitas–but lacks his hubris. “I don’t have any way of justifying how I got this part,” he adds with a laugh. “Maybe George was attracted to me because I wasn’t known at all. The audience can definitely believe in someone if they don’t have any [previous] idea of who you are.” All they know is who he will be.

Popularity: 6% [?]

By Day You’ll Find Him
Playing a leading role in Shattered Glass, now filming in Montréal.

Favorite Nighttime Activity
“When I was in Australia filming Star Wars Episode II, I lived on Bondi Beach. One night I went with Ewan McGregor to a pub, and when I was feeling a little ‘simple’ some hours later, I decided to head home. On the way I started goofing off, making my way into the water. It was 2:30 in the morning, I was fully clothed, and I was totally peaceful. Just feeling the fluidity of the waves going up and down and listening to the sounds of the ocean was so calming that I dove into the waves. What a great night!”

Undercurrents
“I learned how to swim when my father dropped me into the deep end of a pool one day. Some years later, when I was swimming in the ocean, I got caught in a school of jellyfish, and was dragged back to shore with tentacles wrapped around my body. I’ve had a few run-ins with water, but I still find it totally sensual.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Star Wars made Hayden a mega star, but what is he like in private? YAM! met him and had a closer look at him…. (*I love those meaningful introductions……**groaning***) “Hayden doesn’t have a lot of experience with journalists yet, that#s why he’s a bit shy”, his PR lady explains while the door of the interview suite at Covent Garden hotel London opens and SW hero Hayden Christensen (21) comes in. Shy? Not really. The 1,85m Canadian (=6’1) introduces himself with a nice smile, strong handshake and a deep voice. Hayden discovers the mp3 mobile phone which the YAM! correspondent is going to use to record the interview. “Wow is that thing small! Can I have a look at it?” he asks. Is the Jedi knight a technology geek? Hayden laughs: “No, at home I don’t even have internet access. But my parents work in the communications business. I just know how to use video games.” When he’s not playing video games, Hayden spends his time with more oldfashioned hobbies: playing the piano, reading and writing. But is that how get such a great body? This is how Hayden explains his amazing figure: “I love sports. I’ve been playing hockey a lot and I was Nationally ranked in tennis.” Sports is like a family tradition. His father David went on a university scholarship in football (*the text say soccer but that might be a wrong translation by the journalist*), his brother Tove still holds the Canadian junior record in running a mile, and his sister Hejsa was a Junior World Champion on the trampoline. Hayden stands up and gets himself a glass of water. There’s not a trace of any arrogant star behaviour – he’s a grounded and friendly guy who never imagined getting the role of Anakin Skywalker. “When I flew to San Fransisco to meet George Lucas I had to throw up because I was so nervous.” In the meantime his stomach calmed down and Hayden is even going to get his pilot licence (*don’t ask me what that journalist misunderstood here…..gg*). No wonder he was excited, though as he was one of 40 applicants for the role, besides Leo Dicaprio and Keanu Reeves. But George Lucas, the father of SW picked Hayden. He considered him “the best upcoming actor since Harrison Ford”. Sporty, talented, good-looking and a huge star – that just has to make the girls queue in front of his door. Hayden blushes. “I’m far too shy to talk to a girl (*in the first instance*). That’a why I only had two relationships so far. Though I miss having a girlfriend. I often feel very lonely.” He’s even sceptical towards normal friends. “I doubt about the reasons for which strangers want to be my friends – especially now.” Hayden also experienced the dark side of fame. When a paparazzi photographed him with a cigarette, he got a mega sermon from his dad who didn’t even know his little son smoked. His family means everything to Hayden, and that’s never going to change. “My mum will always say thing like ‘have you already cut the grass?’ or ‘Are those your socks lying on the floor?’ and I just can’t say ‘Mum I don’t have to do that’ jut because I have a role in SW.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Darth Vader needs some chicken soup, and his mommy.

It is a sopping February afternoon in London, and Hayden Christensen, the 20-year-old Canadian actor who will play the young, conflicted Jedi Anakin Skywalker in ”Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones,” plunks himself on a sofa in the lounge of the Covent Garden Hotel, looking, well, young and conflicted, not to mention a little pasty. A patch of hair sticking up suggests that he hasn’t strayed far from his bed today. ”When I got into town, I got pretty ill, so I’ve pretty much spent the last week in my hotel room with the blinds drawn, trying to get better,” he explains, pulling at the sleeves of his sweater.

Christensen is a buffet of tics: he picks at his chin, tugs at the tongue of his boots, absently kicks at the coffee table in front of him. A few years ago, Christensen experienced an adolescent growth spurt that morphed him from the smallest kid in his junior hockey league to what he is today, a lithe, 6-foot-1-inch man with long, reedy fingers and an unwieldy pair of arms he seems unable to stow comfortably. His face, though, retains the dewy look of a child, endowing him with the odd overall aspect of an angel on stilts.

Christensen is in London rehearsing for his professional stage debut as Dennis Ziegler, the surly pot dealer in the West End production of Kenneth Lonergan’s 1996 slacker drama ”This Is Our Youth,” which also stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Anna Paquin. Getting the part — like beating out every young actor, Leonardo DiCaprio included, for the ”Star Wars” role, as well as getting a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of a troubled teen in last year’s ”Life as a House” — is the kind of surreal achievement that would cause most young actors to gather up the Hilton sisters and a sack of drugs and wrap a Porsche around a telephone pole in unhinged celebration.

Christensen’s success, though, seems only to have heralded a two-year era of coughing and bouts of nausea. First there was the anxiety during his two trips to Skywalker Ranch to interview with George Lucas for the ”Star Wars” role. ”I puked going there both times,” he says. More recently, it has descended into his lungs, in the form of bronchitis, which he suffers from today. ”I’ve gotten it three times in the last four months,” he laments. And the British interpretation of America’s favorite home remedy has been a complete bust. ”I’ve ordered chicken noodle soup so many times over the past week because I’ve been sick, and gotten so many interpretations of what it should be,” Christensen says, shaking his head as though puzzling through a great mystery of the universe. ”A lot of them have had the bone. I don’t know if people over here just really like sucking on that afterwards. I just don’t know.”

What he does know, however, is that all this illness is just part of acting, something he takes very seriously. ”It’s kind of become a ritual that every time I have to go to work, I get physically sick right before we start production. It’s some sort of psychosomatic problem I have, just the anxiousness of wanting to get into your work.”

For Christensen, it’s always ”the work.” Though he looks like a kid who might have been abducted from a mall by a casting agent and slapped right on the big screen, Christensen evinces a brooding commitment to his ”craft,” as he earnestly calls it. After finishing ”Attack of the Clones,” he took the role in ”Life as a House,” Irwin Winkler’s modestly budgeted weeper. Though critics panned the film, Christensen was praised for his performance as Sam, Kevin Kline’s glue-sniffing son.

Christensen and his older brother, Tove, recently set up their own production company, Forest Park Pictures, so they can trawl for exactly that type of script, ”small in scope, character-driven pieces.” And perhaps in a few years, maybe he will finally find time to have some fun. But don’t bet on it.

”I think I work harder than anybody else my age,” he says matter-of-factly. ”Not to sound conceited, but I just don’t meet anybody in the industry that I work with who is so devoted to always being in that mind-set of character.”

Apparently, Natalie Portman, who reprises her ”Phantom Menace” role as Queen Amidala, found herself included in that group of laggards at times. Christensen would take the task of playing Portman’s on-screen love interest (their union will eventually produce Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia) to Actors Studio extremes. ”I don’t want to make it sound like he’s difficult to work with, because he’s not at all, but he’s very focused,” Portman says. ”Hayden would get mad at me occasionally for not taking something seriously enough. There were scenes where the entire take would be us walking up stairs, and he would be like: ‘You’re swinging your arms too much! You’re not taking it seriously! You’re not walking the way your character would walk!’ I would get all pissed off at him and be like, ‘It’s not your place.’ But he would be right.”

Achievement and discipline have never eluded Christensen, nor, it seems, any member of the Christensen family of Toronto. Tove still holds the Canadian record for the fastest mile for a junior athlete; his sister Hejsa was for a time the junior world champion on the trampoline. His father, David Christensen, a software developer, attended college on a football scholarship and enjoyed all the privileges of being a star athlete on campus. ”He sort of wanted that for all his kids, and so he made sure that we were all pretty competent at our respective sports,” he says. Christensen excelled at hockey and was nationally ranked in tennis. ”At the time, I was a little resentful of it, but it was probably a good way to spend my childhood,” he says, perhaps not sounding entirely free of resentment.

At 7, Christensen was spotted by a talent agent when he accompanied his sister to her agent’s office for a Pringles commercial. Soon, Christensen himself was doing commercials, coughing for the camera in a Triaminic cough syrup ad and shooting at the television screen for an interactive video game. He attended the Arts York drama program in Unionville, a suburb of Toronto, and immersed himself in acting.

Two years ago, right before graduation, he was offered a part in a Fox Family Channel series, ”Higher Ground,” playing a druggie teen who is sexually involved with his stepmother. Rather than going off to college, Christensen took the part, which was not a popular decision in his household. ”My father wouldn’t really talk to me for a few days,” he says.

Now Christensen’s tasks are bigger than television boilerplate. The kid who was born four years after the original ”Star Wars” was released, and who has a vague recollection of his brother’s Millennium Falcon toy, gets the task of bridging young Jake Lloyd’s huggy-bear-with-a-bowl-cut Anakin Skywalker in ”Phantom Menace” to the point that by ”Episode III,” Skywalker dons the scary black helmet and becomes his ”dark side” alter ego, the fearsome Darth Vader. All the while fending off mobs of doughy, middle-aged Jedi junkies who make a habit of showing up, crazy-eyed, wherever he does. Recently in Los Angeles, he was chastised by a middle-aged man when he was unable to sign an autograph. ”So there was this 50-, maybe 60-year-old man, cursing my name, screaming, ‘I came all this way just to get your autograph!”’ Christensen says. ”I don’t want to say that that was sad, but, you know, it’s not what I want to be doing when I’m 50.”

Nor does he want to be doing what Mark Hamill, the first boy wonder of ”Star Wars,” is doing at 50, which appears to be very little.

When asked about the Hamill curse, a Yoda-like smirk spreads across Christensen’s face. ”You see ‘Corvette Summer’?” he asks, referring to Hamill’s disastrous ”Star Wars” follow-up. ”I don’t really think there’s a Mark Hamill plague. I think there’s a I-don’t-really-know-what-I’m-doing plague.”’

Sweat it not, young Skywalker.

Popularity: 6% [?]

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN: ACTOR (Life As a House) Hayden’s face may not be familiar yet, but if’s coming soon to posters, lunch boxes and notebooks near you. George Lucas handpicked the virtually unknown actor over more established stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Phillippe to play Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones. But before Hayden Joins the Dark Side, you can catch the 20-year-old Vancouver native’s riveting turn as a drug-addled teen in the just released drama Life As a House.

EXPERT OPINION: “I’ve worked with a lot of new actors, and part of the fun of working with them is that they are all extremely enthusiastic, and they work really hard. Every day Hayden gave us 110 percent, and it shows on the screen. Hayden is young and charming, but at the same time he’s got a nice edge to him. He’s really strong, and you can see him becoming Darth Vader.” -GEORGE LUCAS (director, Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones)

Popularity: 6% [?]

It’s a typically wet and overcast morning when I arrive in London. After checking into my room at Blakes, I find myself strolling down King’s Road and eventually inside a rather non-descript bookstore. On the bottom half of the newsstand there are stacks and stacks of newspapers whose headlines all announce the death of Queen Elizabeth’s troubled sister, Princess Margaret. Above this is a phalanx of Vanity Fairs on which we see Hollywood veteran Natalie Portman in a Renoir-esque reclination upon the likes of newcomer Hayden Christensen. One royal exits, another royal enters.

Hollywood royalty like Old World royalty can be attained by either marriage or birth-think Michael Douglas, Rob Reiner, Anjelica Huston, Jon Peters, Kate Hudson, Angelina Jolie, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Candy and Tori Spelling, Lourdes etc. Talent is encouraged, but certainly not required.

Of course, entree into Hollywood royalty can also be somewhat more democratic than Old World. All one needs to do is put together a string of critical and financial hits over a decade or so, ala Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks, and hardly anyone will remember that you started off a pool-attending pauper before ending up a noble prince of Tinseltown.

And then there’s admittance to Hollywood royalty via the wild card. Every so often along comes a role so coveted-think Vivien Leigh-in a movie destined to be so classic, not to mention profitable-think Gone With The Wind-that the lucky soul who snags the part is instantly catapulted to the head of the coronation line and ceremoniously ushered into the kingdom. Forever.

And so shalf it be for 21-year-old Hayden Christensen. It was two years ago this May that Christensen, while starring in a Canadian TV drama (who knew Canadians possess drama outside of a skating rink) landed the acting gig of the new century. Insiders say Christensen beat out Hollywood royals Leonardo DiCaprio and Colin Hanks, Tom’s son. The role, of course, is that of Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, in George Lucas’s Star Wars movies, Episode II & III. Finally, the world will see Lord Vader as neither an 8-year-old prodigy nor upper-management’s masked malcontent, but as a villainous intergalactic hottie playing Natalie Portman’s Queen Amidala for all she’s worth. Talk about your Big Bang.

And if there were any naysayers occupying the Court of Lucas, all have since been rendered silent by Christensen’s Golden Globe and S.A.G. nominated performance in last year’s Life As A House.

It is a Sunday afternoon when I sit down with the 6’1″ Canadian somewhere in Kensington, only a stone’s throw from the late Diana’s former digs. It is also Hayden’s only day off from his current project, the revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, playing in the West End. But before you read this Q&A I want to be fair, to set the record straight, as it were. If you ever get to spend five minutes with Hayden, he would tell you that all this talk about royalty and such was just so much conjecture by a writer looking for an angle. He would most likely confide that he’s just an actor who got lucky. Or that he’s (gasp!) no different than you or me. But isn’t that just like real royalty. They never lose the common touch.

Didn’t you have bronchitis?
Yes, I contracted bronchitis in September and just when I thought I was over I had to get on another long plane ride, I’ve had it three times so I have to give up smoking.

You just got back from your photo shoot. So how was it working with the famous Duane Michals?
I really enjoyed him. He’s very quick. He only needs a couple of rolls for each shot. We had this one shot in Trafalgar Square where I’m running through the birds and there was this old bird lady who was really getting upset with us. She said we were disturbing their meal. Duane was like, ‘Get away from us! We don’t care what you have to say.’ He really articulated how uninterested he was with what she had to say. Duane’s a bit of a character. The whole premise of the shoot was that your character was able to write in his diary every morning exactly what would happen to him that day. In a lot of ways that’s you. How do you feel about that?
You really can’t be that fortuitous in your thoughts, but I’ve always aspired to be successful at whatever it was I was focusing on. In my family we were all heavily involved in sports. Whatever our respec- tive sport was we did it at a high level. But in this industry your measure of success isn’t necessarily parallel to the amount of effort you’re putting into it or how dedicated you are to your craft. It’s quite in frustrating at times… but it’s nice to be choosier about the roles.

So how is this impending fame affecting your family?
It’s kind of disgusting how many people sort of come out from the woodwork after all this stuff started happening.

Have your brother or sisters said, ‘Give up the business, Hayden a just give it up?’

Nah. They’re very supportive. They’re not really as aware as I would like them to be about how it’s going to be when Star Wars comes out. It’s really a hassle to get them to take their names out of the phonebook. ‘Nah. We’ll do that later.’ It would really be a smart idea for them to that now.

How do you think your next Christmas is going to be when you go home?

Honestly, no different than my last Christmas. The ritual is very intense. We always have it at our house in Toronto. The same people come over every year. It’s my favorite time of year. Maybe they’ll get nicer presents. [laughter]

I heard you’re pretty good in tennis. What happened?
You mean why aren’t I playing now?

Right.
I love tennis, but I originally started playing competitive hockey when I was young because in Canada you’re handed a hockey stick as soon as you come out the womb. I started playing when I was 6 years old and by the time I got to be 16 I was playing at a really higher level. But I decided to quit because of all the politics having to do with scouting. It added a whole new layer in having to playing a really simple sport. So I decided to give it up on the one contingency that my father gave me: that I had to pick up another sport and play seriously so that I could have that experience of going to university on some sort of athletic scholarship like he did. My older brother and sister went on scholarships.

Don’t you think the women’s tennis circuit is more interesting than the men’s?
I don’t know. I just don’t enjoy the women’s tennis as much as the men’s. I know it sounds very…

John McEnroe?
I know, I know. But it comes from me playing at a junior level.

Hayden, why would anyone want to become an actor, a job where you pretend for a living?
That’s something I’m struggling with myself. It’s an odd profession. I came to many crossroads when I was deciding to go to university or not. I had to evaluate where my mindset was when it came to acting because I loved it, and it was very therapeutic. I think for me it’s the process and not the product. I’ve always found it very intriguing to explore what motivates someone to do a certain action. I’ve alway regarded myself as a sort of observer.

Plus, you get to live all these other lives.
Then there’s that thought that I’m not sure what I really want to be so I’ll be an actor and pretend I am all these different things.

Did you give yourself a time limit? Did you say to yourself, ‘If I don’t succeed as an actor by this date, I’ll quit’?
I never honestly viewed success in this industry as it relates to your public profile or whatever you wanted to call it.

So here you are a Canadian playing an American in a play that’s going to run in England. Have you picked up any nasty habits? Are you resisting the urge to pick up the accent?
It’s just infectious. As an actor you’re very aware and you just let things affect you. Everytime I go to another country I start to play with the accent. I started saying wanker a lot. [laughter] I love all the British slang. It’s more humorous than derogatory. I saw Elijah Wood on Jay Leno and because he was working with all these Brits on Lord of the Rings he would fade in and out of this accent.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, do you think it would have been better to film Star Wars Episodes I & II back-to-back like Peter Jacksor, did?
We couldn’t because my character, Anakin, has to age ten years. I still have some baby fat on my face.

So you aren’t worried about getting into some terrible car accident like Mark Hamill did between sequels?
Oh, God. I don’t even want to project myself there. But as a rule of thumb it’s harder to revisit a character after you’ve said your good byes.

I’m sure you had to hold something back in Episode II as a contrast to when you go completely evil as Darth Vader.
It’s really challenging. It requires a much more linear approach to how you see your character. I’m building an arc… character growth or whatever you want to call it.

More like character decay.
Yeah. So that arc is over the course of two films. In the second film I don’t even know what I’ll be doing. It’s a real trippy process. I spend a whole lot of time writing about my character, well all my characters, but for this I find it very helpful because it gives me a chance to revisit all the things I had defined as my character’s sensibilities.

Your character is really the first in all the Star Wars that has such a strong character development.
We’re doing a lot of firsts. We’re also tackling the topic of love, something that had yet to be done in Star Wars.

How does it feel to portray Darth Vader? I mean, there was Jake Lloyd who did it at age eight, and Sebastian Shaw played him when he was eighty-two, but you’re the first layable Darth Vader. [laughter]
It’s as nerve wracking as anything. I’ve decided not to worry about justifying getting the part. But it’s a little too overwhelming to try and put what happened to me into perspective.

You got the part of Anakin almost two years ago. Has life changed? Be honest. I mean, I had a limo pick you up this morning. [laughter]
Yes, it’s changed in a lot of ways, but what I hold dear and value I think I’ve been able to preserve. But my working experience has completely changed. There’s a feeling that it has all happened too fast, but at the same time I do have my places where I can go. I still have my friends and family.

How are you going to deal with all the sycophants? Can you spot the phonies?
Yeah, I think so. I’ve had to already. Not fans but people who have different interests in relating to me. My circle of friends has become much more defined and smaller, which kind of sucks. But that is what comes with being in a film like Star Wars.

Did you ever hesitate about taking this part? For instance, Ewan McGregor got a lot of flack and people predicted he would never overcome his casting as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Of course, that hasn’t been the case. Look at Moulin Rouge.
No, but I don’t know what the response is going to be. The films I’m interested in are usually much smaller in scope.

In a way you’re in a damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don’t situation. If you start doing Indie parts people will say you’re trying to get your credibility back, and if you’re in another big movie…
I’ve sold out.

Tell me about George Lucas.
He’s unquestionably a brilliant storyteller. He’s really in his domain in an editing room. I think George was more excited by his work in this film because there was more of a story to tell. Because he had to set up things for these next two films. The first didn’t leave much room for human interaction.

Does Episode III end as a downer or as a question?
I think it’s going to be a much darker film which George will really enjoy directing.

Does Jar Jar Binks finally get his in Episode II? [laughter]
He’s still in it. His part is somewhat modified. I can’t give too much away. It’s hard for me to talk about a film I’m extremely excited about and then say ‘Sorry, I can’t tell you.’ But yes, Jar Jar is back.

Damn! When you came on the set was there any resentment among the established stars? Did Mr. Lucas warn the cast not to give you any shit?
There was none of that.

Oh, come on.
Honest to God. It was one of the warmest embraces for an actor stepping into an almost family structure.

Let’s talk about Life As A House. Did you warn your mother about that opening scene?
No. [laughter] I told her that she was in for a lot. I went with my entire family to the opening at the Toronto Film Festival and I was petrified. It didn’t click until we were approaching the theatre that I was going to be sitting next to my mom while on screen I would be masturbating… having this exotic asphyxiation.

Did your mom lean over and ask, “Hayden, have you ever done this before?” [laughter]
No, they were able to accept that I was just playing a character. That was very cool. So now I’m less hesitant to have them come out and see my play.

Kevin Kline, I felt, was really ignored as far as awards go.
He was one of the reasons I was so anxious to do that film. I thought he gave a great performance.

Let’s discuss what you’re doing here in London. Right now you’re doing This Is Our Youth. You’re playing Dennis, the drug dealer.
Yes.

You’re playing a lot of dark roles. Can you describe the play for me?
The play for the most part is two guys talking and commenting on different things that have happened in the past couple of days. What happens is that Warren steals $15,000 from his father and brings it over to my house. We’ve got this money, what are we going to do? It’s kinda like the frog in the hot water assimilation. If you have a frog and throw it into a pot of boiling water it will jump out. But if you keep turning up the heat five degrees every ten minutes it won’t know when to jump out and then it will all be too late. In a lot of ways that’s what’s going on in the play.

Does either Warren or Dennis gain a perspective?
By the end of the play you’re aware that Warren is able to have perspective on everything that is going on and grow up ultimately. My character is pretty much a lost cause. Personally, I find him more interesting to play but the journey is in Warren.

I know it’s a limited run but do you see it making its way to Broadway?
They’re toying around with the idea.

We’ve been talking about the dark side of things so let me ask how are you going to resist the dark side of Hollywood?
By resisting Hollywood altogether.

Do you have a home in LA?
I have a place there but I use it just for work, just a couple of months out of the year. I prefer to spend my time in Toronto. LA is not my favorite place.

Many a young actor has been chewed up and spit out by Hollywood. What’s your game plan to avoid all that?
The exhausting aspect of being an actor is that you’re always on the job. You never really get to go home and say it was a hard day at work because you’re always analyzing what your character can and should be doing. In that way it’s hard not to take on the mannerisms sensibilities of your character. So you’re always sort of in character.

But aren’t you afraid that by taking on so mam characters that…
I feel like I’m getting them out of the way now. This my first time working since Life Is A House and we finished that over a year ago. It took me awhile to recover from that experience.

How did it feel not hearing ‘The Golden Globe for Actor goes to Hayden Christensen’?
I left the Golden Globes feeling that things went exactly right. I sat down the night before and tried to put things into an intelligent perspective. I thought, ‘These are the people who voted for you because you were nice to them. You take your pictures with the Foreign Press and you’re very kind, so maybe this is why I got nominated.’ It was so absurd that I had to put the pen down and say I’m not going to win. So I went there hoping I didn’t have to get up on stage a wing it. I didn’t win, so it was good.

The Globes is such a surreal and intimate gathering.
It’s weird having Ian McKellan come up to you afterwards saying, “I loved your performance. I can’t wait to see your play.” My play! How did he even know about it?

Here’s a cliche: Is there anyone you’re looking forward to working with?
John Tuturro is someone I really have to work with. I have to work with Meryl Streep. I’ve met a lot of famous people in the past couple of years and I’m always amazed how I’m not in awe of them- “Oh, you’re just another normal person’-but when I met Meryl Streep it was like when I met Wayne Gretzky when I was eleven. “Oh, my God! You’re the Great One.” She’s amazing.

Here’s your last question, Hayden: What are we most I about you in the National Enquirer?
Hopefully, everything that’s not true. [laughter]

Popularity: 6% [?]