Hayden Christensen And Diego Luna Discuss Their Careers And 'Star Wars' In Variety's Actors On Actors Interview
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Variety’s Actors on Actors series, brings two different actors together, to discuss various aspects of their careers. For this specific one, it brought together Diego Luna, who played Cassian Andor in both Rogue One and Andor, and Hayden Christensen who played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episodes 1-3 and most recently Darth Vader in Obi-Wan Kenobi. While the two actors have never met, they are both huge parts of the Star Wars universe, and they sit down to discuss their careers, and their roles in Star Wars.
Christensen starts off by saying he was 19 when he finished with Star Wars. He talks about the audition process. He mentions that it was a long process, and felt like the role needed to be more attainable. He says meeting George Lucas for the first time was “thrilling”. He never thought the audition process would “go his way” and so when he got the call to play the part, he says how it was “life-changing”.
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Christensen asks Luna how he got his part in Rogue One, especially because he was already an established actor. Luna said there was a lot of secrecy surrounding the role, and his agent told him “It might be Star Wars”. He also mentioned how his agent to him meet someone for something that couldn’t be said on the phone. He went into the meeting at a very empty restaurant, where Rogue One filmmaker, Gareth Edwards, sat in a corner. The two sat for hours talking. Luna told Edwards how he wanted the role, but didn’t think he fit in with his accent. Edwards told him, however, how he was looking for “realism and that feeling that its everyday life”.
Christensen says that “Star Wars holds a special place in my heart”, and how he did enjoy getting to be a fan again, but that there was also a part of him that missed it. He said when he got the call that it was a “very easy decision”. He says the fact that he would get to swing a lightsaber alongside Ewan McGregor again for the Obi-Wan Kenobi show was very thrilling. He talks about Deborah Chow and how articulate she is in regards to Star Wars and she understands the characters so well. He felt that he was in good hands with her and that he was excited to do more with the character.
Luna and Christensen discuss the stories of their characters and the people who brought them to life. Christensen says how George Lucas “mapped out a very compelling character arc that was hopefully sympathetic”. He talks about how we could understand what Anakin was going through, and why he was making some choices that weren’t the best and the circumstances of his life. His fall to the Dark Side was understandable, but also humanizing and made him a real person. Luna talks about how he likes what Tony Gilroy did with Cassian Andor, and how his story was backward, that have a story of a past that you could “never imagine”.
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The two actors talk about how Star Wars changed their lives. Luna said it gave him “freedom in many ways”. He also said it was a “shock but in a good way”. He Christensen said that it gave him an “acting career. It gave me financial stability”. He said what Star Wars gave him the most was a “connection to all people who love these stories”. He talks about how he’ll meet people and how they’ll tell him that “Anakin was my hero when I was a kid, and now my kid loves Anakin”, and that it's “really special”.
The interview concludes with them discussing that they are fans of each other's work, and how Diego Luna was a fan of Hayden as Anakin and Star Wars as a whole. Hayden ends it by saying he’s “excited to see what comes next” in regards to Andor season 2.
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Source: Variety
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