PT Who would you have cast as (adult) Anakin?

I don't dislike Hayden, and I don't find him wooden as others have.

But...I do believe that in terms of presence, physique, and voice, Hayden was miscast.

Vader is presented as being a very tall, massively wide guy. He has, even without the mask on, even while dying, a rather deep and commanding voice for a white man. He has a vaguely British accent without the mask as well.

Contrast this with Hayden. Hayden is tall, but small boned, slender; not a powerhouse. He doesn't have a deep voice at all, and while he does manage some of Vader's inflections, he lacks any commanding tone and any semblance of a British accent.

I'm just wondering....Who would you have cast as adult Anakin if you were the casting director back in the early 00s?

 

I think you are mistaking the casting decissions with the intent behind the decission. Anakin was NOT meant to be a massive, commanding powerful man. He is a confused kid. Someone who is supposed to be great and all-powerful and special, but doesn't feel he is good enough.
Vader's "powerhouse" personality is all theatre, it's a show. It's the mask behind which hides the frightened child who made a few sad mistakes and is now paying for them.

 

Liam Neeson

 

Personally, I think that Hayden was a solid choice. I think that he may have been poorly directed at times, but I have always genuinely enjoyed his performance.

That said, the OP makes an interesting point regarding Anakin's accent. Since Anakin was portrayed by Jake Lloyd in TPM, it would be unreasonable to expect that his American accent would be drastically altered by the time we saw him in AotC. That said, when the helmet comes off in RotJ, we are met with the English accent of the thespian Sebastian Shaw. So, I'm not sure that there could be a right answer to the problem of accent.

 

I was recently told that HC's performance was at least the equal of Pacino's in The Godfather movies. So clearly he was perfectly cast.

 

When I first saw the TPM trailer, Liam Neeson seemed to be perfect for the role of Anakin.

Similar build.
Similar age of what Sebastian Shaw would be 30 years earlier
Gravitas
Known as a good (movie) swordsman
He was side by side with OB1

So I thought that Liam was going to be Anakin. And I thought "nailed it"

 

I don't think Lucas was necessarily looking for someone who evoked Vader. First and foremost he was looking for someone who evoked Anakin, in some sense a completely separate character. (He cast Sean Patrick Flanery as Young Indy for similar reasons. Apparently, Flanery was one of the few auditioners who did his own thing instead of trying to be Harrison Ford.)

He does start to adopt more of Vader's mannerisms and speaking patterns in ROTS, but I think the focus was on the starkness of the transformation more than on any sort of seamless transition.

And the reason Hayden's accent isn't British is because it's not important; I think it's likely Lucas wanted Anakin to have an all-American quality reminiscent of Luke, which Hayden's Vancouver accent reads as to most people. And it's worth pointing out that JEJ's accent as Vader isn't the same as Shaw's. JEJ affects a Mid-Atlantic stage accent, whereas Shaw speaks with something close to a Received Pronunciation accent. One notable difference is in the way that Shaw voices his t's, whereas JEJ doesn't.

Thirty years before ROTJ Anakin was a "young Jedi." I'm not sure why you would have thought a guy Liam Neeson's age would be playing Anakin in a prequel story about how he became Darth Vader.

 

But the question wasn't who would Lucas cast.

Liam Neeson's age was perfectly lined up with Sebastian Shaw 30 something years prior to RotJ.

 

Hayden Christensen.

 

Better I would say but AP is close enough (thought the character arc isn't near as good).

See Anakin in ROTS. Then add in cyborg limbs and the armor and there you go.

If you want more detail then people have done that already:

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/que...th-vader-so-much-taller-than-anakin-skywalker

Keep in mind that the being we know as Darth Vader is not simply Anakin Skywalker in a suit. Anakin's physical body was used as the foundation, true, but Darth Vader is much more:

• Both of Anakin's legs were removed and replaced with robotic prostheses.
• Vader's armor is quite thick and likely adds an inch or more to both his height AND overall girth (torso, legs, arms, etc.), thus making him appear both taller and bulkier
• Vader's overall look is designed to be large and intimidating, thus making him a more effective symbol of the Emperor's power

Given these facts, it's not difficult to see how a 6'1" Anakin could become a 6'8" Vader. There are approximately 5-6 inches added at the feet and helmet alone, so the remaining inch or two could easily be dispersed throughout the shins & legs.

As that was Anakin as portrayed by SS for one minute then those things would be there.

Anakin's voice in ROTS is quite deep. The performance is tailored to him being Vader in voice, inflection, sentence structure. Not sure what you consider commanding tone from a few words said by the SS Anakin.

Since HC was so great and Lucas' choice then it'd be somewhat like asking who else should have played Luke, Leia, Han, Obi-Wan etc.

 

Hayden Christiansen

Fight me.

 

Matt Lanter from the clone wars.
I think personally he could pull it off in live action and a lot better than Hayden did with dialogue at least.

 

Hayden is Anakin to me. I can't think of anyone else playing the part.
I would even consider replacing Shaw's unmasking scene with Hayden a good idea to keep the continuity.

 

I always felt when I was a kid that Val Kilmer's Madmartigan was Anakin. Or at least how I envisioned the character would be like when I watched Willow and again when the PT was announced in the mid-to-late '90's.

Hayden played a better version of Anakin in that pretty good 2014 Outcast movie with Nicolas Cage not that long ago . Even Cage could've been a good Jedi character.

 

Pacino did his best but couldn’t reach HC levels. De Niro in Part 2 was almost Hayden standard but not quite.

 

Honestly? I can't see anyone but Hayden as Anakin

 

Matt Lanter is my anakin I can't see anyone else in the role

 

Didn't expect so many Hayden responses, even if this website is more positive towards the PT than most.

His performance in ROTS is extremely underrated. The scene when he finds out Padmé is pregnant is the first thing that comes to my mind -- Hayden can play a conflicted character really well and without his performance, I doubt that Ep. III would be as emotional and intense as it is.

 

At one point I think Leo was close running for the part.

 

It might depend on what part of the country you’re from, but Hayden Christensen’s accent always seemed a bit weird to me in a way that Mark Hamill’s didn’t. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States all of my life, but I really don’t know anyone who quite sounds like that. I’d have an easier time finding someone who sounds like James Earl Jones.

It’s not really a major problem with the movies, and I just wrote it off to him being Canadian, but it really doesn’t evoke all-American…and considering that, in real life, Jones IS more American than Christensen is, it seems like a weird point.

C’mon. Get real.

Agreed. But to get the real pressing issue, we all know that Paul McCartney and John Lennon will never equal the musical artistry or craftsmanship of the Jonas Brothers.

 

He’s Canadian

 

I know. And he sounds it. Which is fine. It’s just not all-American.

 

Christensen was fine but I think I would have preferred Christian Bale or Ryan Phillippe.

 

Also worth pointing out that Vader started off with teeny tiny little arms in RotS:



Years of bicep & forearm curls did the trick.

 

I never once had any previous conceptions of what young Anakin should have been like. I gave the topic zero thought. But when I first watched AotC I just knew Hayden was perfect for the role. To me he simply WAS young Vader. No other actor comes to mind who would have played the role better. Period.