{"id":385677,"date":"2026-01-01T23:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385677\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T23:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:37:11","slug":"12-actors-who-auditioned-to-play-anakin-skywalker-in-star-wars-movies-before-hayden-christensen-was-cast-an-oscar-winner-turned-down-the-role-auditions-casting-eg-evergreen-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385677\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Actors Who Auditioned to Play Anakin Skywalker in \u2018Star Wars\u2019 Movies Before Hayden Christensen Was Cast (An Oscar Winner Turned Down the Role!) | auditions, Casting, EG, evergreen, Extended, Hayden Christensen, Movies, Slideshow, Star Wars | Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment, Photos and Videos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Star Wars<\/a> prequel movies were some of the hottest blockbusters in Hollywood when they were released, and Anakin Skywalker was a very popular role that actors wanted to land!<\/p>\n

Booking the part launched Hayden Christensen<\/a> onto the map. <\/p>\n

He famously made his debut in the franchise playing the man who would eventually become Darth Vader in 2002\u2032s Star Wars: Episode II \u2013 Attack of the Clones. However, he faced intense competition before he was cast. <\/p>\n

Before Hayden booked the part, 300 actors reportedly auditioned. In fact, the competition was so star-studded that he admitted that he never expected to be cast<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Over the years, 13 of those actors (including Hayden) have been identified. The list includes a fan-favorite, award-winning movie star who seemingly turned the role down for a simple reason.<\/p>\n

If you missed it, Hayden announced that he will be returning to the Star Wars universe<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Scroll through a rundown of all the actors who were in the running to play a young Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Star Wars prequel movies were some of the hottest blockbusters in Hollywood when they were released, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-385677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}