---
name: "Hayden Christensen"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/hayden-christensen"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "19 April 1981"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 68
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-09-18T11:54:34.955434+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Hayden Christensen

Actor. Born 19 April 1981 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 19 April 1981, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- **Active:** 2000–2005
- **Also known as:** Hayden Christiansen, هیدن کریستنسن, Гайден Крістенсен
- **Frequently works with:** [Ewan McGregor](https://film.one/person/ewan-mcgregor.md), [George Lucas](https://film.one/person/george-lucas.md), [Natalie Portman](https://film.one/person/natalie-portman.md), [Rick McCallum](https://film.one/person/rick-mccallum.md), [Samuel L. Jackson](https://film.one/person/samuel-l-jackson.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 68, as actor, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 68 to 64 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 2 of 2 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Action 2, Adventure 2, Science Fiction 2, Drama 1, Romance 1
- **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $1,510m across 3 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Christensen, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q192812, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0159789/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/17244

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith*](https://film.one/film/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith.md) (67), [*Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones*](https://film.one/film/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones.md) (54)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Hayden Christensen

> Hayden Christensen does his best work when nobody has written him a speech. Handed the worst dialogue in *Star Wars* as Anakin Skywalker, he took the blame for a decade; watch him with his mouth shut and the case for the defence is there.

Anakin Skywalker walks into a moisture farm on Tatooine looking for his mother and finds a stranger with news he does not want. For ten minutes in *Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones* (2002), nobody hands Hayden Christensen a speech, and he is good: still, watchful, a young man who has just understood something and does not yet know what to do with his face. An hour earlier, by a lake on Naboo, the same actor was telling Natalie Portman how much he dislikes sand, and we squirmed for both of them. Christensen is a much better actor when he is not talking.

He came up through Canadian television from the age of twelve or thirteen, had early roles in *In the Mouth of Madness* (1995) and *The Virgin Suicides* (1999), and was first properly noticed in *Life as a House* (2001), playing a son raw enough to hurt. George Lucas had already cast him as the adult Anakin in 2000. The two prequels, in 2002 and 2005, made him famous everywhere and fixed the reputation for years: wooden, said most critics, or petulant, and we understand why. We scored *Attack of the Clones* 54, and the hour that costs it most is the hour he is on screen talking. What we thought then and still think is that the failure is on the page. He is playing a boy meant to be gifted, arrogant and frightened of himself, and Lucas and Jonathan Hales gave him sulk to say, so sulk is what came out.

The film most often reached for when people want to be fair to him is *Shattered Glass* (2003), in which he plays the journalist Stephen Glass through a lie that gets away from him; we have not reviewed it and will not judge it at length. What we can say from the prequels is that his physical commitment is real, the lightsaber work fast and hard and looking like effort rather than dance, and that the Tatooine scene moved us more than a film which had spent an hour losing us had any right to. The talent is there. It is not evenly distributed, and it needs a director who knows where to find it.

After *Star Wars* came leads in *Awake* (2007) and *Jumper* (2008) and a run of genre films that most critics shrugged at. He came back to Anakin by voice in *The Rise of Skywalker* (2019), then in person in *Obi-Wan Kenobi* (2022) and *Ahsoka* (2023), seventeen years after he last wore the costume, by which time the character's turn in *Revenge of the Sith* (2005) was being looked at more kindly by some as an arc that paid off. "It's great to hide behind a mask," he said of Vader. That is a modest thing for an actor to say, and on the evidence it is also true: the less he is asked to say, the more he lets us see.

## Biography

Hayden Christensen is a Canadian actor. Born on 19 April 1981 in Vancouver, British Columbia, he began his career in Canadian television as a child before moving into American television and film in the late 1990s.

He gained international recognition for portraying Anakin Skywalker in *Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones* (2002) and *Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith* (2005), later reprising the role (including as Darth Vader) in *Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker* (2019), the series *Obi-Wan Kenobi* (2022) and *Ahsoka* (2023). Earlier film roles include *The Virgin Suicides* (1999) and *Life as a House* (2001), the latter earning him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, starwars.fandom.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith* (2005), Fi1m 67, as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader — [page](https://film.one/film/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith.md)
- *Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones* (2002), Fi1m 54, as Anakin Skywalker — [page](https://film.one/film/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones.md)
- *The Virgin Suicides* (2000), Fi1m 83, as Jake Hill Conley — [page](https://film.one/film/the-virgin-suicides.md)

## Complete filmography (41)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Ahsoka* (2023), series, as Anakin Skywalker
- *Obi-Wan Kenobi* (2022), series, as Darth Vader, Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker
- *Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker* (2019), as Anakin Skywalker (voice) — Fi1m 50, [page](https://film.one/film/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker.md)
- *The Last Man* (2018), as Kurt Matheson
- *Little Italy* (2018), as Leo Campo
- *The Tank* (2017), Executive Producer
- *First Kill* (2017), as Will
- *90 Minutes in Heaven* (2015), as Don Piper
- *Cooties* (2014), Executive Producer
- *Outcast* (2014), as Jacob
- *American Heist* (2014), as James, Executive Producer
- *Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey* (2010), as Jammer (voice)
- *Vanishing on 7th Street* (2010), as Luke
- *Takers* (2010), as A.J.
- *Star Wars: The Clone Wars* (2008), series, as Anakin Skywalker (voice) (archive sound)
- *New York, I Love You* (2008), as Ben
- *Jumper* (2008), as David Rice
- *Virgin Territory* (2007), as Lorenzo
- *Awake* (2007), as Clay Beresford
- *Factory Girl* (2006), as Musician
- *Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith* (2005), as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader — Fi1m 67, [page](https://film.one/film/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith.md)
- *The Story of Star Wars* (2004), as Anakin Skywalker (archive footage)
- *Shattered Glass* (2003), as Stephen Glass
- *Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones* (2002), as Anakin Skywalker — Fi1m 54, [page](https://film.one/film/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones.md)
- *Life as a House* (2001), as Sam Monroe
- *The Virgin Suicides* (2000), as Jake Hill Conley — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/the-virgin-suicides.md)
- *Trapped in a Purple Haze* (2000), as Orin Krieg
- *Higher Ground* (2000), series, as Scott Barringer
- *Free Fall* (1999), as Patrick Brennan
- *The Famous Jett Jackson* (1998), series, Acting
- *Strike!* (1998), as Tinka's Date
- *Real Kids, Real Adventures* (1998), series, Acting
- *Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy III* (1997), as Zane O'Dell
- *Goosebumps* (1995), series, as Zane
- *Harrison Bergeron* (1995), as Eric
- *Street Law* (1995), as Young John
- *No Greater Love* (1995), as Teddy Winfield
- *In the Mouth of Madness* (1995), as Paperboy
- *Family Passions* (1993), series, as Skip McDeere
- *Are You Afraid of the Dark?* (1992), series, as Kirk
- *Forever Knight* (1992), series, Acting

## Gallery

- ![Hayden Christensen, actor (2017)](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-686c8f98bf96.jpg) Hayden Christensen, actor (2017) — Gál Tímea, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Hayden-cfda2010-0004%281%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Hayden Christensen at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City, May, 22, 2026](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-b789c182d938.jpg) Hayden Christensen at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City, May, 22, 2026 — John Manard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-22.jpg/1280px-Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-22.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Hayden Christensen at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City, May, 22, 2026](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-f8ec80f862a1.jpg) Hayden Christensen at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City, May, 22, 2026 — John Manard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-22_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-22_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Hayden Christensen at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City, May, 22, 2026](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-0ae225fff655.jpg) Hayden Christensen at GalaxyCon Oklahoma City, May, 22, 2026 — John Manard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-25.jpg/1280px-Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-25.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Hayden Christensen](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-4ad3cecc7d05.jpg) Hayden Christensen — Image via TMDB
- ![Hayden Christensen](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-3e6e3883c6e0.jpg) Hayden Christensen — Image via TMDB
- ![Hayden Christensen](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-ffa041370504.jpg) Hayden Christensen — Image via TMDB
- ![Hayden Christensen](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-09c8e69753fe.jpg) Hayden Christensen — John Manard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-3.jpg/1280px-Hayden_Christensen_GalaxyCon_Oklahoma_City_05222026-3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Hayden Christensen](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-c8e7c75ac9c4.jpg) Hayden Christensen — Image via TMDB
- ![Hayden Christensen](https://film.one/media/person/415365/gallery-fc2041630f3b.jpg) Hayden Christensen — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Other awards — 1 won

- MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 2006: MTV Movie Award for Best Villain (won), for *Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/hayden-christensen