Any actor worth their salt will put in the hours before they take on a role, to prepare mentally and physically, to do their homework and learn everything they can about the character they’re about to play. Hayden Christensen did just that before he returned to the world of Star Wars, by reading Darth Vader comic books to get ready for his role in the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series.
The long-awaited Obi-Wan Kenobi release date finally arrived at the back-end of May 2022, with the sci-fi series airing weekly on the streaming service Disney Plus. The series follows Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) as he tries to protect the Skywalker offspring from various threats. The biggest threat of all to our favourite Star Wars characters, is the return of Darth Vader.
Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in the second and third Star Wars movies of the prequel trilogy back in the 2000s, is back and is kicking ass in the iconic black suit of his villainous alter-ego. Turns out much of his inspiration for the role this time around is based in the comic book version of his character.
In an interview with ScreenRant, Christen revealed that he had done plenty of research before returning to the Star Wars timeline, including a deep dive into the world of comic books.
“In preparing for this, I did as much research as I could,” Christensen explained. “And I got to read some of these Darth Vader comics; these standalone comics that just focus on Darth Vader, and [there’s] some really interesting stuff there.”
The Marvel Comics version of Vader is indeed very cool, and we really hope we get to see some of the truly evil (but also rather badass) moments jump from the panels to the screen in the Kenobi series, or at some point in the future of live-action Star Wars.
#ObiWan has two episodes left to give Darth Vader a line on par with this. pic.twitter.com/MBwG6i5AvJ
— Amon Warmann (@AmonWarmann) June 14, 2022
Whatever happens, and whatever you think of Disney’s relationship with the epic science fiction movie franchise, one thing’s for sure; Disney is making Darth Vader scary again.