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What
if dreams came true?
And
you could be who you wanted to be
You
could do what you wanted to do
And
you could help who you wanted to help
What
if dreams came true?
And
the worlds open-up
And
you will never ever pray
What
if dreams came true?
But
dreams do come true
Don't
they?
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When he
was 5 years old, Jake Lloyd dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween.
"It was completely amazing," remembers the 10-year-old. When I was
6, I said, 'I have to be in a Star Wars film.' I was 8 when I was cast,
and I play a 9-year-old." Proving that some childhood dreams really
do come true, Jake was handpicked out of 3,000 contestants by George Lucas
to play young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom
Menace. As all Star Wars fans already know, Anakin becomes a Jedi
Knight and then goes to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader, the Dark
Lord of the Sith and leader of the Imperial Forces.
Jake really
seems destined to play Anakin and it also seemed that he knew it.
"He said he was going to do Star Wars, so I knew he was going to do Star
Wars," says his dad Bill Lloyd. "If Jake wants it, he gets it," chimes
in Cindy Osbrink, Jake's agent.
Never mind
the special effects, the costumes, the music, the set design and the rest
of the shooting match that is, was, and shall be "Star Wars, Episode I:
The Phantom Menace." The fate of a galaxy far, far away rests on
some rather diminutive shoulders. While the movie-making magic and
relentless hype may produce a record box-office opening, it won't matter
much if audiences don't warm to one person not yet seen by a generation
of fans for whom this incredible space saga is a force. Jake Lloyd
is in the unenviable position of being an heir to an empire. The
scions of his character are known to the millions of moviegoers of this
planet.
Anakin Skywalker,
a slave boy who gains his freedom to begin training as a Jedi Knight, a
mythic warrior and guardian of all that's good in the "Star Wars" scheme
of things. It might be reasonable to expect a modicum of panic to
set in for a young actor finding himself taking on such weighty responsibility
for the future of the "Star Wars" empire. Add to that overpowering
legacy the fact that this latest feature arrives with more than 20 years
of anticipation.
If the attendant
hoopla is cause for alarm, young Jake Lloyd seems not to know it.
Seated in a chair that seems to make him smaller than he is, Lloyd looks
in person like a cross between Corey Sevier who plays Timmy of "Lassie"
fame and Dennis the Menace. Go ahead. Make his day. Ask
him if he knows how important his role is.
"Oh, yeah,"
Lloyd says and nods vigorously. "Young Darth Vader, come on!"
It's much more a statement than a question he utters, as if to say, "Duh."
"It's a
very important part." Lloyd narrows his eyes.
But did
he feel any slightest pressure making the movie?
The eyes
become slits. "No. Well, I didn't feel any pressure because
I was there with very supportive people so I didn't feel any pressure at
all." Yes, he's only 10. No, he's not the latest droid from
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Jake's demeanor
is more that of a playful, rambunctious fourth-grader than a precocious
child star. His impish humor gets unleashed when talking about his
sister, Madison, who is 6. "She's the phantom menace! At home
my sister says, 'Hey, Jake! You can fly' as she throws me down the
staircase… Yoda lifts rocks, I lift my sister."
Jake's pre-Phantom
Menace resume includes "Unhook the Stars" and the Arnold Schwarzenegger
Christmas comedy "Jingle All the Way." Bill says "We were hoping
he'd be done with acting then. It's obvious Jake didn't need Arnold
to learn confidence."
When Lucas
sent out a casting call for Anakin Skywalker, Lloyd's agent submitted a
picture of Lloyd, then 6. But the part required the character to
be a kid of 8. Luck-- destiny or more appropriately, The Force interceded
and made Lloyd's agent seem prescient. It took Lucas longer -- by
several years -- to cast the part. Jake grew into it. Did he
think he had a prayer of getting the role coveted by every stage parent,
agent and child star in Hollywood? "Quite, honestly, no...." The
word is stretched out to three long syllables. "Yeah," he suddenly
contradicts himself, "I did."
Still, Jake
can be modest when he talks about getting the role, "A lot of it was luck"
he says. And he rather refreshingly seems to go on auto-pilot when
asked for the gazillionth time what he likes to study in school.
"Science, it's one of my favorites, reading, mathematics, history, and
recess." School clearly comes first for the young actor. "The
only time my parents will let me work is during the summer," he says.
Does this
young actor find time to be a kid? "When I'm not working, I ride my bike
and play video games. I go rollerblading and spend my time walking
my dog J.J. [named after his character in Unhook the Stars]," explains
Lloyd. He's is also an outfielder for his Little League Baseball
Team
Can Lloyd
expect his life to go back to some semblance of what it was before all
this "Star Wars" business began for him? "It's gonna be the same,
I hope," he begins, but then comes the assessment. "I don't really
know. Nobody really knows until it happens."
Maybe he
is a droid. Could anyone so young be so savvy? Does he talk
this way all the time? "I'm like this a lot. But not all the
time," Lloyd says. "I'm still a kid."
Ask him
his favorite part of his "Star Wars" experience, and it's the kid who supplies
the answer. "All of it." And you believe it. No battle
scars here, scripted or otherwise.
He sounds
like every actor who ever did an interview when he says making the movie
"was like hanging out with friends." Just ask him the hardest part
of making this film, and you wonder if Lucas put him up to it. "The
hardest thing was leaving the set at the end of the shoot. After
four months you really bond with them," Lloyd says in earnest. "Four
months with them. You guys are like family." But then, since
he's a kid, he probably means it.
He has a
stock reply, it seems, for anyone curious about the identity of his favorite
"Star Wars" character. He leans back in his chair. "Darth Vader,
of course, "because he's evil, just like me." But before that remark
can register, the youthful embodiment of Lord Vader does another 180.
"Because he's a good guy," he corrects himself.
Jake believes
Anakin is a hero, not a villain. "Darth Vader is a good guy.
He kills the Emperor [in Episode 6]. I think that's enough to redeem
him," he says matter-of-factly, referring to Darth Vader's resolution in
the original trilogy. "And he had plenty of chances to kill all kinds
of people, but he didn't. He was sad that he was leaving his mother.
He had so many chances to kill Luke Skywalker, but he didn't. He
could have only wanted to Pod-race to enjoy it, not to help his friends.
So personally I think he's overall a good guy. And he did bring balance
to the Force."
Wait a quick
little minute here, young Jake! Do you already know what happens
in Episode's II and III? "I do know how it goes, but they know where
I live!"
Asked if
he is worried that he will be remembered only for Phantom Menace," Jake
answers, "I won't be." Or to put it another way, "If this was Everest,
Phantom Menace is Camp 4. There are four camps and then the summit."
In Anakin,
Watto's slave boy, Qui-Gon senses an unusual precocity, one might
almost say a Force. Qui-Gon makes a bet with Watto. If Anakin miraculously
wins the big Podrace against the swaggering champ Sebulba, the boy will
be freed. Free to chase his destiny as a Jedi Knight.
Whatever's
the reason, for the sometimes inexplicable appeal this saga has had over
the years. Whatever's impetus enough for standing in line for weeks
on end simply to be among the first to see the new film, one thing's for
sure, if there's one thing Jake value's, it's his Jedi Knight suit.
"It's the last costume I wore in the film." For better or worse,
in Episode One, a 10-year-old towheaded kid named Jake will forever be
this family's patriarch.
Try leaving
that, kid.
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