Getting cast in a Star Wars project would be exciting for any actor, and landing a role synonymous with lightsaber fights has to be truly next level. Whether you’re the good guy or bad guy, it must be so much fun to get to wield the iconic weapons in choreographed combat, which actor Hayden Christensen knows a thing about. Of course, he also knows what it’s like to be asked to stop doing his own sound effects.
While at Disney’s D23 Expo, Rotten Tomatoes sat down with Ahsoka stars Rosario Dawson, Christensen and Eman Esfandi, asking them what the key is to a perfect lightsaber fight. As the title character, Dawson jumped right in to declare that it’s most important not to do the sounds. While the Anakin Skywalker actor agreed, he shared that it was also difficult for him to break the habit and even had the man himself, George Lucas, tell him to stop. Here’s what he said (via YouTube):
It took me a while to stop doing the sound effects. When we were doing the prequels, I — on a few occasions, George Lucas would come up to me and say, ‘Hayden, it looks really good, but I can see your mouth moving. You gotta stop doing that.’ But I think it’s something that everyone struggles with for a little bit. And then you figure out, ‘Oh, I gotta stop doing that.’
This is not the first time that Hayden Christensen has talked about the impulse to make the sound effect when swinging a lightsaber. At a Star Wars Celebration 40th Anniversary panel nearly a decade ago, he revealed that both he and Ewan McGregor needed to stop doing it and that he wasn’t even aware it was happening until it was pointed out to him.
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Personally, I’m delighted to hear that Star Wars actors find the same joy in filming the fight scenes for the big and small screen that every fan of every age has when pretending to be a great Star Wars hero or villain. It’s so easy to get caught up in it all that it’s incredibly relatable to know that the cast is not excluded from that. You can check out the full clip with the Ahsoka cast below:
The Star Wars prequels have been given a hard time since their release, but that hasn’t stopped the love Christensen has had thrown his way. Fans were thrilled to see Anakin in the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series. He then returned in flashbacks and as a Force ghost in Ahsoka, which will return for Season 2 in January 2027. He’s also been incredibly gracious about the love and support from fans and has given direction to Stormtroopers when he’s taken his daughter to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in the Disney theme parks.
While the list of best Star Wars movies and great Disney+ original shows that you can watch with a Disney+ subscription continues to grow, you can track all of the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows on the horizon. I’m definitely going to keep an eye out to see how his time in a galaxy far, far away continues to play out, hoping that maybe we’ll see Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan all share the screen again in the future. And until then, I’ll be watching for any BTS videos that might come out with Star Wars cast members doing their own audio sound effects in lightsaber fights.