PT All things about Jake Lloyd (Consolidated Thread)

Jake Lloyd who played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace quit film industry after life made living hell

HE PLAYED an iconic role in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.

Jake Lloyd had the world at his feet and should have been the envy of every child in the world after playing Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace when he was eight years old.

Instead, the Star Wars actor quit the film industry after his childhood was turned into a "living hell".

The 22-year-old became so haunted by the movie he vowed never to act again and he has stayed true to his word.

"Other children were really mean to me," he said.

"They would make the sound of the light saber every time they saw me. It was totally mad."

Jake recalls how busy his young life became and at one point he was doing around 60 interviews a day.

"My entire school life was really a living hell - and I had to do up to 60 interviews a day."

Lloyd felt so much anger towards the George Lucas directed film that he destroyed all of his Star Wars memorabilia, and only reprised his role as Anakin for five video games.

The youngster decided to take early retirement from acting as he was no longer able to fit in at school.

"i've learned to hate it when the cameras are pointed at me," he told a magazine.

Jake, whose mother is an entertainment agent, admitted in an interview Scifitv.com that he doesn't like watching the film anymore and he blames George Lucas for that.

"When you have something like that there's a lot of expectations for it to meet the standards of the public and I don't think George did that.

"For me to go back and watch it now would be kind of creepy."


Wow, that kinda comes as a surprise to me. If Lloyd was so disgruntled with Lucas and filming TPM, why does he until now to reveal this?

 

I saw an interview with him a year or two ago in which he said much the same thing, except he came across as even more wounded and bitter. I felt genuinely sorry for him, the relentless teasing and bullying carried on right through his college years.

I'm sure it's easy for SW fans to say "Oh, come on, you've got to be thick-skinned about this, HTFU, you should be proud etc", but can you imagine copping such personal attacks, face-to-face, for a decade, during your childhood and adolescence? All because of some movie?

He's not angry about filming TPM, he's angry about the decade of abuse that followed. As I said, he brought this up a couple of years ago, before that I imagine he was still dealing with it all.

 

hasn't he appeared at conventions before? from what i know of him interacting with fans he seemed ok with it.

 

Exactly.

Here's the interview.

And here's one of his latest interviews, on which he seems way more happy.

 

Alright, 'fess up people...

How many of you 40 year-old bashers vaulted into the schoolyard ten years ago to taunt little Jake?

 

He comes off as intelligent and more mature than the average American kid his age. He seems to think deeply about things. He was in a movie that has suffered an ongoing onslaught of hatred, and with RLM and others out there still attacking him quite viciously it doesn't seem odd that he'd be pretty tired of it all.

 

One feels for him, but at the same time, his parents should have had enough foresight to weight all the risks in being a part of such a huge franchise. It can happen to almost any kid in almost any popular movie or TV franchise, imho.

 

If I were in a SW movie, even as a kid, and people made lightsaber sounds evert time they saw me I would have been delighted.

 

This seems to be the case -- in my opinion -- with the majority of Star Wars cast members. All the leads, anyway.

I think Lucas has always looked to cast relatively mature people to begin with. People that won't give him aggravation; people that can think for themselves; people with style and grace to match.

I really dissent from the majority on this one. The casting of all the films, in my opinion, has been excellent. And it's a treat to see and hear such well-adjusted actors speaking as themselves; and performing in other roles.

* * *

As for this, er, "article"...

Firstly, it is sourced to The Daily Heil. Sorry, The Daily Mail -->

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2110383/Anakin-Skywalker-actor-Jake-Lloyd-Star-Wars-fame-turned-life-living-hell.html

(BTW: Anyone that doesn't get that gag really has a lot to learn about this newspaper).

Secondly, it's nonsense.

Thirdly, I'm done here.

* * *

Alright, kidding aside, there may be some truth to it, but it's difficult to ascertain what and where, primarily because the article appears to be a composite of different interviews done over the years to different publications and websites! So much for original journalism.

Here is the full piece (minus images and captions) -->

The writer has scurrilously dredged up bits 'n' pieces from different places; and I wouldn't be surprised if they twisted some wording or invented some of it outright. And it's all rather skimpy, anyway.

Clearly, this piece has been written -- or, I guess, compiled -- to capitalize on the 3D release of TPM. I love their parting shot to the PT by way of their tribute to Ralph McQuarrie. An artistic genius, to be sure, but also a man primarily associated with the OT, not the PT.

I'd like to know this writer's sources, inside and out

 

They did. It was talked about in the interviews from 1999. In the Premiere magazine interview, he and his parents thought about it before signing up. They even talked about the kids in school and their reactions, both to date at the time and yet to come.

 

And Jake Lloyd must have said, "I wanna do it. It's what I've always dreamed of doing!"

It's a shame. I understand some bitterness towards Lucas and Star Wars. Had Lucas made more of a fun but forgettable crowd-pleaser or a near remake of A New Hope, his childhood/adolescence would have been far easier. He would have suffered the occasional taunts (he was famous after all and starred in a fantasy (see: geek) movie) but would have received nowhere near as much hatred from the "fans."

For what it's worth, Mr. Lloyd, I've always enjoyed your performance as the young Anakin.

 

Well, I do feel sorry for him. Although I believe the boy Jake was miscast, and perhaps that the character of Anakin should have been older to begin with, he was just a child at the time, and the decision to be part of such a cultural phenomenon was not entirely his (nor did he understand the raminfications).

 

And that's what it it. The "journalist" also takes the liberty of making assuptions out of quotes taken out of context. But hey, that's what tabloids are all about.

 

Having rewatched the film several times in the last few months on blu-ray and in 3D at the theater, I can honestly say that I think Jake is really good in the film. I never got the complaints about him. He played Anakin with a nice bit of enthusiasm and liveliness. He wasn't "stiff" or anything like that. He had maybe a few line readings that maybe weren't the greatest, but overall I think he did a fine job. Definitely a performance that he shouldn't have to hang his head about, though sadly so many people out there are utterly convinced he was terrible in the film, it wouldn't matter if he gave a Brando level performance...the reputation of that particular performance is what it is, and people are cruel about it. Very underrated performance.

Also, I can't believe he actually said he didn't think George did a good job of living up to people's expectations. I have seen a fairly recent interview with him (the one were he tells the interviewer about the 6 hour cut that Matthew Wood supposedly saw), Jake actually praises George and says George is a great filmmaker and did a good job with the film. I forget exactly how he put it, but he certainly praised the job George did in that interview. This author HAD to have fabricated that quote, I can't believe Jake spoke negatively about George or the movie itself. That has never seemed to be his issue. His issue IMHO has always been the way he was treated by the public. In fact one would think that such a reaction towards the way the public treated him would be a direct result of him feeling the movie was well done and his performance was fine, therefore he does not believe the public has treated him fairly and gave him a bad rap undeservedly. That article wreaks of fabrication. Anyone else agree?

 

Well, it is the Daily Snail. It also appeared in The Sun, home of the Page Three Girl .

People were very cruel to him. I remember when Lloyd appeared at Celebration IV, the first one since TPM came out, and TFN even posted something encouraging fans not to be mean to him. It is disheartening though to read stuff like this even if it is exaggerated or embellished.

--MissPadme

 

It's entirely possible he blamed Lucas then thought better of it later. Wouldn't you want to blame somebody if you were as unfairly and hatefully targeted as Jake Lloyd was as a CHILD? Media/hateboys constantly call Lucas a talentless hack who screwed up the franchise, so it's an easy position to adopt. Who doesn't go through a period where they blame their parents for all of their problems?

I imagine that if the quote is genuine, then it represents a very understandable attempt to cope with all of the vitriol thrown his way. I actually find it very encouraging that he has since contradicted that sentiment and defended the film. It shows a a great deal of maturity on his part, and that is to be admired.

 

So you can confirm the quote where he claims George failed to succeed in making a film that lived up to expectations is an old quote that he no longer stands by?

 

the kid couldn't act his way out of a paper bag.
it's not his fault. he just shouldn't have been cast.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

Quite frankly I thought his performance was fine. The scene with Shmi, you can really feel his struggle between leaving his mother/staying with his mother.

Also the scene in the Jedi council chamber where you see Anakin's anger/frustration with the council. His face conveys this feeling, "I made a tough choice to leave my mother behind, just so these guys could tell me I can't join the Jedi?"

 

I've always felt really sorry for Jake Lloyd. Watching TPM in 3D, I thought he did a good enough job with scenes like the Jedi Council and leaving his mother, while the performance was pretty bad in a lot of other scenes, but that was mostly due to their terrible written material he was given.

I think a lot of the responsibility rested on George Lucas's shoulders, honestly. This was a nine-year-old kid being cast in one of the most iconic roles in history in one of the biggest movies of all time. If the movie was bad, people were going to bash Jake. IMO, Lucas should have either tried putting more effort into the dialogue (no "YIPPEEEE"), try to help Jake with his acting more, or not cast him at all. I saw Hugo recently. Don't know old the kids were in that, but their acting was a lot better. I hope Lucas had make Anakin at least a little bit older.

 

Jake was the perfect choice. He did a wonderful job. However, I don't really like his attempt at looking angry in that Council scene. Everything else was decent to excellent, though!
That article is obviously made to promote the writer's own opinions. Jake seems cool about it all, so that's what we should be as well... Cool...





Jake - he's cool
/LM

 

Jake Lloyd took the job so if, at 8/9 years old, he couldn't foresee what potential problems that would have caused, then he shouldn't blame George Lucas, but blame his parents who probably encouraged him to audition and accept the role.