Hayden Christensen Is Back! Where the Star Wars Actor Has Been and Where You'll See Him Soon
Hayden Christensenis coming back in a big way!
The ultra-private star, who's been holed up in his native Canada for years, will return to the Star Warsfranchise to reprise his role of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.
It's a bit of a surprising move for the actor, who eschewed box office blockbusters for years following his stint as the galactic Big Bad.
"I don't really think about my career because the idea of a career is not something I can put a lot of thought into," he admitted to The Toronto Star in 2008. "I do the work that appeals to me and I pass on films that would probably benefit my career."
Christensen got started in acting as a child, appearing in a cough syrup commercial, as well as mainstream fare including Goosebumps, The Famous Jett Jackson, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, The Virgin Suicides, Are You Afraid Of the Dark? and the German-Canadian soap opera Family Passions. His breakthrough role was in Life As a House, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2001.
"When I was around eight [years old], I got asked by my sister's agent if I wanted to do commercials. From that point on I did one or two a year. It was a great excuse to get a day off from school," he told Interview magazine in 2003. "When they aired I denied that I was ever involved with them, because I was almost embarrassed by it. Acting wasn't something I took very seriously."
Of course, playing one of cinema's most iconic villains in the Star Wars franchise changed his trajectory a bit.
"I like to take things as they come and, as much as possible, not force anything," he said. "I think I could wind up somewhere completely different five years from now, something completely removed from acting—I could be perfectly content studying photography or English literature. At the same time, I love what I’m doing right now and could see doing this for a very long time."
As it turns out, he was right on both fronts. Find out what Hayden Christensen is doing now and all about his return to the Star Wars franchise.
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Did Hayden Christensen retire from acting?
Christensen didn't retire from acting, but he did take a break from it for a few years. He told The Toronto Starin 2008 that he stepped away from the big screen post-Star Wars temporarily to focus on farming.
"It's a hobby, but I want to have the appearance of being a proper farmer," he said. "I'm trying to figure it out. It's all new to me, but I would eventually like it to be a fully operational farm with livestock and different crops." He added, "I've got a tractor and an excavator and I'm learning to use all the construction equipment. Right now there's an apple orchard that I want to extend and I've started a small vegetable garden and I want to turn a hayfield into lavender." Christensen also noted that he had two pigs, but that they were pets and slept indoors, and that he was looking forward to getting some more critters, including horses, sheep, and cows.
In 2015, Christensen explained to The Los Angeles Times that he didn't want to grow too entitled as an actor after starring in some of the biggest blockbusters ever.
"I guess I felt like I had this great thing in Star Wars that provided all these opportunities and gave me a career, but it all kind of felt a little too handed to me. I didn't want to go through life feeling like I was just riding a wave," he said. He acknowledged that the break would impact his work, but wasn't bothered.
"You can't take years off and not have it affect your career," he said. "But I don't know—in a weird, sort of destructive way, there was something appealing about that to me. There was something in the back of my head that was like, 'If this time away is gonna be damaging to my career, then so be it. If I can come back afterward and claw my way back in, then maybe I'll feel like I earned it.'"
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Is Hayden Christensen still acting?
Christensen has kept busy. Following Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sithin 2005, he starred in Jumper in 2008 (where he met Rachel Bilson, with whom he shares daughter Briar Rose) and New York, I Love You. He took on two films and a voice acting gig, then took a four-year break. In 2014, he appeared in films Outcast and American Heist and served as executive producer of horror-comedy Cooties, which starred Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer, and an ensemble cast; a year later, he executive-produced the horror film Blood Countess and starred as Don Piper in the film 90 Minutes in Heaven.
In 2016 and 2017, he executive-produced Standoff and The Tank and starred in 2017's First Kill. In 2018, he co-starred with Emma Roberts, Danny Aiello and Alyssa Milano in romcom Little Italy, and in 2019 starred in The Last Man and voiced the Force Ghost of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker. In 2021, it was revealed he was coming back to the Star Wars fold for two series on Disney+ (more on those below!).
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Where does Hayden Christensen live now?
Christensen lives on his farm near Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada. Bilson revealed on The Betches Mom Podcastthat Christensen also spent time in Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic to make co-parenting Briar Rose easier "because she's had the opportunity to have another house to go and not be stuck in our house the entire time. So I'm grateful for that and we've just handled it."
What is Hayden Christensen's net worth?
Christensen has an estimated net worth of $12 million.
What movies and TV shows is Hayden Christensen in for 2021?
Christensen doesn't have any projects currently lined up for 2021, but he has a full slate of Star Wars TV productions for 2022.
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Is Hayden Christensen in Obi-Wan Kenobi?
Christensen is back at it! It was announced in December 2020 that he'd reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobiseries.
"It was such an incredible journey playing Anakin Skywalker," he said in a statement. "Of course, Anakin and Obi-Wan weren't on the greatest of terms when we last saw them… It will be interesting to see what an amazing director like Deborah Chow has in store for us all. I'm excited to work with Ewan [McGregor] again. It feels good to be back."
He told Vanity Fairin May 2022, “This is a character that has come to define my life in so many ways. I was originally hired to play a very specific portion of this person’s life. Most of my work was with Anakin. And now I get to come back and explore the character of Darth Vader.”
Is Hayden Christensen in Ahsoka?
In fall 2021, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Christensen would appear not just in Obi-Wan Kenobi, but also in the Disney+ Ahsokaseries. Ahsoka stars Rosario Dawson as the titular Ahsoka Tano, a former apprentice of Anakin Skywalker, reprising her role from The Mandalorian. The show takes place five years after Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi—and the death of Darth Vader. As such, it's unclear whether Christensen will appear in flashbacks or possibly as a Force Ghost in the series. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Dawson wrote, "Skyguy… They know!!! See you soon, Snips." "Skyguy" was Ahsoka's nickname for Anakin, and Snips was his nickname for her.
The series will be not just a reunion for Ahsoka and Anakin, but also for Christensen and Dawson, who first met at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in their teens.
"I had a particular kind of interest in [Ahsoka Tano] and in that character because when I first started acting at 15, I did this movie, Kids, and I got paid like $1,000 to work on it," Dawson recalled to Vanity Fair in November 2020. "When the movie came out, I decided at 16 that I wanted to continue pursuing acting. My dad's mom said, 'Well, if you're going to do that, and you're 16 years old, then you need to study acting,' and put me in Strasberg. And it happened to be that summer when Hayden Christensen was in—we had the same class."
"We ended up doing this movie together years later called Shattered Glass, and I always just thought it was really cool that I knew someone who was not just in Star Wars but played Anakin Skywalker," she continued. "Ahsoka was his Padawan, so when the fan-casting came out, I just thought it was pretty wild that I visually connected to this character from being this teenager who met this actor who ended up being this great character. I don’t know, it just felt like the Force was at play."
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