Long-time friends Rosario Dawson and Hayden Christensen studied at New York City’s Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, first meeting back in 1995 and almost 30 years they clashed sabers in Ahsoka as the live action incarnations of Ahsoka and Anakin. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly they discussed the process and pleasures of reuniting to work together on the hit Disney Plus series.
EW: I remember Ewan McGregor telling me how nobody cared about him on set when Darth Vader was around. I know you’re a modest guy, Hayden, but could you feel that electricity from the crew when you stepped on set — that all eyes are on you?
HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN: It is a character that people have a lot of affection for, and yeah, you get a sense of that. A lot of the people who are working on these projects now grew up on the prequels and were huge fans of those films, and so I think they have a special connection to these characters and to Anakin. Anytime Vader shows up, that’s a crowd-pleaser, so that’s an easy one. But it’s really nice to see the support that Anakin has now.
EW: How did you all approach the preparation for these World Between Worlds scenes together? Let’s start with the physical elements of the lightsaber battle. How often were you able to practice with each other beforehand?
DAWSON: We actually didn’t really practice together. Once we started filming, it was almost impossible to be able to get us together. It was just an insane schedule, but that was actually what kind of made it a little fun. I think [fight choreographer Ming Qiu] had a weird thing about wanting us to really have that moment be more on-camera than anything, which was very cool.
And the set was so wild. It was very unusual for us because a lot of times we were shooting on the Volume, so you could see everything. But on this one, we had this whole other area and this grading with the light coming through, and it was very kind of bare. It almost felt a little theatrical. It was magical to see what they ended up making it look like because [during filming] it was very keyed down and just us on this beautiful long strip of a platform which was very, very cool.
I think we had two full days of filming on there, with the kind of flipping into Darth Vader and back and forth. We had this beautiful catwalk runway and people just watching us. It was quite a spectacle, I have to say. I kept getting really caught up in it. And when you were shooting with [Ariana Greenblatt, playing young Ahsoka], I got to come and visit on set, and that was really remarkable because even before they did all the special effects, it was breathtaking to watch these beats and moments. Seeing you coming out of this smoke and steam, it was very surreal.
- Hardcover Book
- Córdova, Zoraida (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 336 Pages - 08/27/2024 (Publication Date) - Random House/Star Wars (Publisher)
