Hayden Christensen Did His Research Before Filming ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’

Hayden Christensen’s return to the world of Star Wars is something that feels like a gift to many of us millennials who really enjoyed his take on Anakin Skywalker. Growing up with the prequels meant spending years defending my love of Revenge of the Sith and Hayden Christensen as an actor.

Now, time has been on my side, and many are excited to see him and Ewan McGregor reunite in the upcoming Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. And with that comes a history for Anakin Skywalker that wasn’t there the last time that Christensen played the Jedi-turned-Sith Lord. I’m talking about Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.

The series, created by George Lucas and written by Dave Filoni, started in 2008 (five years after Christensen last played Anakin), brought us a backstory for Obi-Wan and Anakin during the Clone Wars, and would eventually lead into Rebels, which started in 2014.

Both brought us Ahsoka Tano, Anakin’s Padawan, and a relationship for Anakin that we hadn’t seen in the prequels. We watched him grow into a teacher, and we also watched the pain that was left for Ahsoka when Anakin turned to the dark side. All of that is important to who Ahsoka is and who Anakin becomes, so learning that Hayden Christensen watched The Clone Wars and Rebels to prepare for Obi-Wan Kenobi is amazing!

He did his homework

In an interview for the show, Christensen talked about the preparation he did for the series. “I went back and rewatched all the films,” he said to Entertainment Weekly. “And I also got into the animated shows, The Clone Wars and Rebels.”

Now, it shouldn’t be shocking because a lot happened in both The Clone Wars and Rebels for Anakin Skywalker. We saw the emotional journey that it took for him to follow Palpatine and what we didn’t get from the prequels. We got to explore in the animated story, and it’s great to see someone like Christensen watch these entires in the franchise to understand Anakin’s arc, instead of just heading into Obi-Wan Kenobi with his own idea of the character alone.

“It was interesting,” Christensen went on to say of bingeing the two animated shows. “They did a lot with these characters in those shows. And they did further explore the relationship. There was interesting stuff there to learn about. It was great fun getting to go back and re-immerse yourself in this world that just continues to grow and become more and more vast.”

What does this mean for his Anakin?

Now, the question is simply how Christensen’s binge-watch will play into the Anakin we see in the series. It seems, from his quote, that Christensen saw the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin differently while rewatching the films and seeing the animated shows, so maybe that will play into the dynamic between them that we get in Obi-Wan Kenobi. But that’s something we’ll have to wait for. Christensen put in the time and knows Anakin’s history (better than the rest of us), and I personally cannot wait to see how he plays him in Obi-Wan Kenobi.

(image: Richard Harbaugh/Disneyland Resort via Getty Images)