Hayden Christensen Returns to His Old Talent Agency, Hinting at Hollywood Comeback
Hayden Christensen, the 42-year-old actor who broke into fame with his portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in two of the Star Wars prequels, may be planning a Hollywood comeback following his return to the Star Wars galaxy.
Christensen has had a rocky career in the entertainment industry, including taking a four-year hiatus from 2010-2014. He appeared in a few small projects after that, and was even considered for a cameo in The Force Awakens. However, his career earned a second life back in early 2020 when he got a call from his old friend and co-star Ewan McGregor. McGregor himself was then plotting a return to the galaxy far, far away with the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney Plus series, and asked Christensen to come back to the Star Wars franchise with him.
Christensen accepted, likely in no small part due to the recent change in tune from the Star Wars fandom — a group that previously despised and ridiculed him after the poor reception to the prequels, but now had evolved and was largely populated by the younger generation those films initially targeted. Just a few months earlier, he’d provided his voice for a small cameo in The Rise of Skywalker and now, it seemed like the perfect time to come back. The reception on the Internet was glowing, and there was perhaps one person who was happiest about it: Dave Filoni.
At the time of the announcement in late 2020, Filoni was starting to plot his live-action Ahsoka series, and Christensen’s Anakin/Vader was a key component of that story, as audiences finally witnessed earlier this year. News of the actor’s second return leaked to the press the following October, but nobody at Lucasfilm really acknowledged it until this September, when Part Four aired on the platform. Christensen’s involvement in Ahsoka was even better received than his role in Obi-Wan Kenobi, which probably encouraged him to believe that there’s still a place for him in this business.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news on Wednesday that Hayden Christensen signed a new contract for representation, returning to Independent Artist Group, the talent agency that first got him the role of Anakin Skywalker more than 20 years ago. CEO Jim Osborne and agent Ed Limato signed him back then. Osborne said in a statement:
“Ed Limato and I signed Hayden Christensen early in his career and it’s wonderful to be reunited with my old friend.”
Christensen has been represented by Paradigm since 2014, after a small stop at UTA before his four-year hiatus. Osborne was part of Paradigm back in 2010 when the actor moved agencies, and even told Deadline that it was Christensen who’d passed on a number of high-profile projects:
“He wouldn’t read for Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, he passed on Afterlife opposed Liam Neeson, he passed on Cheri opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. It’s so competitive for young actors right now that sitting on a farm in Toronto is not going to get him a job.”
But that’s all in the past now. With this move, it seems like Christensen enjoyed his time in Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka, and is finally ready to begin accepting more high profile roles. Whether or not he returns to the role of Anakin Skywalker again remains to be seen, but with this news, we can certainly expect him to appear in more films over the next few years.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
