Charlie Hunnam Never Got to Play Anakin Skywalker For This Annoying Reason

Summary:

• Charlie Hunnam, known for his roles in sci-fi projects like Pacific Rim or Rabel Moon, could have also landed another famous role in a big sci-fi franchise.
• The actor revealed that his failed attempt to join the Star Wars franchise was due to his “awkward” meeting with director George Lucas.
• Hunnam nonetheless didn’t let himself go down after a big failure and eventually landed diverse roles in other famous projects.

Charlie Hunnam partially owes his prominence to some big sci-fi projects like Guillermo del Toro ’s Pacific Rim or Netflix ’s recent hit Rebel Moon directed by Zack Snyder, but it turns out that years ago he could’ve landed another iconic sci-fi role — and missed it out in the nick of time.

In his recent interview with Variety the actor revealed that back in the 2000s he was one of the finalists for the role of Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas’s epic space opera franchise Star Wars.

Hunnam had quite strong competitors as Lucas was aware of the significance of Anakin’s role in the movies and thus wanted to give it to someone who already proved himself in Hollywood.

In that case in particular, Charlie Hunnam had to beat Hollywood's main rising stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Walker, Ryan Philippe and many others to become an important part of Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.

Eventually, as we all know, it was Hayden Christensen who landed the role and Hunnam’s reverse, according to the actor himself, was only due to his “awkward” meeting with George Lucas. This comes as an especially disappointing part of the story given that the meeting with the director is literally the closing stage towards being officially cast.

And though the failure with the biggest franchise of the time didn’t come as a depressing period of his life as Charlie Hunnam quickly switched to other projects, Hayden Christensen may have not been that happy with his lucky role — at least for some time.

After Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones was released in 2002, the actor was slammed for making his character somewhat annoying which eventually led to Christensen’s disappearance from the public eye for several years. His reputation was nonetheless restored when he came back to his iconic role in Disney+ shows.

Charlie Hunnam’s revelations about his lost opportunity to join the Star Wars franchise may have some fans wonder whether the actor could’ve delivered an even more sinister performance given the character’s path towards villainy.

What remains certain is that Hunnam proved to be an actor in a wide range of dramatical roles even without being a part of a big franchise.

Source: Variety