Playing young Anakin Skywalker in Episode I of the Star Wars saga, Jake Lloyd suddenly achieved international fame. But his cinema career ended there.
In 1999, 15 years after seeing Darth Vader die in the arms of his son Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi, fans of the Star Wars saga impatiently waited to witness his birth. Directed by George Lucas himself, three new episodes of the famous franchise promised the public to tell the origins of the most popular villain in cinema.
Years before becoming the dark Sith Lord we know, Vader was still a young boy from Tatooine and bearing the name Anakin Skywalker.
A world famous character
Particularly coveted given the scale of the event, the role of the Jedi apprentice was enough to propel the lucky person into the Hollywood firmament for the rest of his career. But unfortunately fate decided otherwise for the interpreter of young Anakin.
It was in fact the American actor Jake Lloyd, then aged around ten, who was entrusted with the responsibility of embodying the prestigious character. Only known for having played in Nick Cassavetes’ Pick Up the Stars and in the Christmas comedy The Toy Run alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, the young boy therefore embarked for Lucas’s distant galaxy in the company of Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor (among others).
Lucasfilm Ltd.
If The Phantom Menace experienced a real triumph when it was released in theaters, even becoming the second biggest success of all time behind Titanic, this sudden popularity did not have a positive impact on Jake Lloyd’s daily life, quite the contrary. .
“They were imitating the sound of the lightsaber.”
Indeed, as the young actor declared years later, his role in the Star Wars saga and his new superstar status earned him a lot of bullying from his school friends:
“The other kids were really mean to me.”he confided in 2012, according to the Daily Mail.
“They imitated the lightsaber sound every time they saw me. It was crazy. My entire schooling was hell, and I had to do up to 60 interviews a day.”
Lucasfilm Ltd.
The fact is that after his stint in the Star Wars saga, Jake Lloyd practically never set foot on a movie set again (except in 2001 in the drama Madison with Jim Caviezel).
Having attempted to study psychology, he subsequently experienced setbacks with the law, arrested for speeding in 2015 and imprisoned. In 2016, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed in a psychiatric facility for a time, before returning to his family for treatment at home.
(Re)discover the trailer for “The Phantom Menace”…