Darth Vader Not Goth Enough? This weekend, we get our first look at the man who would be Darth.
"It's overwhelming already," says Hayden Christensen, 20, who beat out Paul Walker and Leo DiCaprio to win the role of a lifetime. "It's already been such a change to where I am right now. It's just something you take as it comes. It's so awesome you can't really prepare."
Christensen won't look much like young Anakin Skywalker, hero of Star Wars: Episode 2--Attack of the Clones, in Life as a House. It's a family melodrama in which Christensen plays Sam, Kevin Kline's troubled son who's roped into helping his estranged old man build his dream house before cancer takes him.
Although you can never know for sure what's going on in George Lucas' melon, Anakin probably won't spike and dye his blond hair black, wear blue eye shadow, cover his face in various piercings and escape reality with a little pot and Vicodan. Then there's that autoerotic asphyxiation he practices just to get a rise (forgive me) out of Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays his mom.
Taking a role as a drug-addled teen so goth he barely recognized himself in the mirror on the House set before Star Wars came out was part of Christensen's plan. And a smart one--moviegoers will now have at least one impression of him by the time they see Anakin swinging a light saber.
"Star Wars was an awesome but very unique experience. Not one that is conducive to free character exploration, because the lines are so defined--by other films, by other people who have played him--so the means in which I have to create are limited," says Christensen, who still lives with his parents in Toronto. "I wanted to do something where I could just go and have fun and play and make believe."
House producer-director Irwin Winkler swears he didn't know Hayden from, er, Mark Hamill when he came in to read after a massive cattle call. It makes one wonder how plugged in Mr. Winkler is--but, unaware, he made Hayden audition with Kline like all the rest (to his credit, no one told him either). "There was an immediate chemistry, if you will," says Kline. "He's very generous. He's very alive, emotionally, and a truly gifted actor and a very bright young man and a lovely person to spend time with."
For now, Christensen sits and waits.
Waits to see if rabid Star Wars fans flood theaters this weekend to get a first look at their iconic villain-in-training. Waits to do reshoots on Clones with Natalie Portman next month. And waits for his action figure to hit store shelves and worldwide attention to focus on him--the man who would be Darth Vader.
"If I thought about it too much, it would be a lot of pressure," he says with a sigh. "I try to give it as little thought as possible and remember he could have given the role to anybody. I can't really come to terms with why he chose me--other than the fact I look like the kid."