Movies - TV
Hayden Christensen Gave Star Wars’ Youngling Actors A Very Real Scare
By JEREMY SMITH
Despite being aimed at a younger audience, Revenge of the Sith is one of the darkest entries in the “Star Wars” franchise, thanks in no small part to the youngling massage scene.
To bring the sequence to its awful conclusion, they needed the child actor who walks into the foreground, Ross Beadman, to flinch when Anakin activates his lightsaber.
However, Anakin actor Hayden Christensen shared in an interview with Empire that he needed to scare Beadman to get the reaction he needed from the child actor.
He said, “[I] shouted, or growled at him, because we needed a genuine moment of him being startled. It got the response that we needed, and it makes that scene work really well.”
When speaking with Star Wars Explained, Beadman recalled acting in the scene, explaining, “Yeah, it took a few takes. It was about four takes before we finally got it right.”
He added, “On the last take I got it correct, and after he [Christensen] unsheathed it [his lightsaber] he shouted ‘BOO!’ and that falling back from me made it properly natural."