This boy is about to become one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and he still lives in his parent’s 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 Phillippee, 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 ant 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 love 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.”