The topic was brought up by EW’s Ash Crossan during a recent interview while Hunnam is promoting his next starring vehicle, Zack Snyder’s blatant “Star Wars”-inspired fantasy epic “Rebel Moon.” This project seems very close to the “Star Wars” standalone movie Snyder wanted to pitch, a sort of “Seven Samurai” sci-fi/fantasy, and even has dang ol’ lightsabers in it, so of course Hunnam’s ties to the prequel trilogy were going to be brought up.
Hunnam himself seemed surprised to recall that yes, he did indeed audition for Anakin and must have gotten pretty close to landing the role, too, because he didn’t just audition, he eventually met with George Lucas.
“I think it was probably maybe two or three actors they were considering. I don’t remember much about it. I remember that I was nervous, and I was a little bit awkward, and I just remember walking out of it thinking ‘Well, I’m definitely not getting that role,’ and I was correct.”
Hayden Christensen has been embraced by the fans who discovered the movies when they were younger, but he had a bit of a hard time, just like Jake Lloyd, when “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” were released. Was every possible actor doomed to being at least initially shunned by the fanbase just due to Lucas’ aesthetic and character choices at the time or would Hunnam have done something different with the part that would have changed minds?
It’s impossible to guess for sure, but Hunnam definitely has a broodier, more intense baseline than Christensen. Any of the rumored actors would have brought their own unique spin to the prequels had they been cast, but Christensen is the one who ended up defining the character for a whole new generation.