Entertainment Weekly catch up with Hayden Christensen and Rosario Dawson to talk about their epic meet-up in the World Between Worlds in the Ahsoka episode Shadow Warrior, and discuss their characters’ relationship in the show’s second season.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I’ve talked with Hayden before about the super warm welcome he’s gotten from fans coming back to the franchise after all the ups and downs of the original trilogy, so now I just want to make him really uncomfortable and have to sit there as I ask you about it, Rosario. What’s it been like to see Hayden come back and get all these accolades?
ROSARIO DAWSON: It’s so beautiful and so special. I was just elated when I saw Hayden in Obi-Wan Kenobi and just hoped, fingers crossed, that that would happen with him on our show. I don’t want to put anyone in the crew out there, but I will say there were some tears shed when we got to see that lightsaber in his hand again. It’s pretty remarkable and very special.
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.
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.
There’s not a ton of dialogue here between you all, but it’s all super important, so how did you approach it?
CHRISTENSEN: This scene was so nicely written. [Creator Dave Filoni] conceived something that was really exciting. From my point of view, I just wanted to bring that to life and help him realize his vision. And all of the lines are so specific that they tell the story, and it was capturing versions of these characters that was very compelling. Following Dave’s lead was a very satisfying experience. We were in great hands with him.
DAWSON: Yeah, I remember we all got the hair raised up on the back of our heads just hearing that whole sort of Anakin discovery, and hearing “Snips” and that connection into the animation was just so amazing after so many years of seeing this dynamic between these characters, and now seeing it realized in live action. It felt really poignant and powerful and very satisfying.
I remember we kept wanting to have a pull of maybe adding “Sky Guy” in there, but it didn’t make sense in that beat, in that moment. But we wanted to! We really did! But to hear “Snips” was more than enough. It kind of took the scene. It was so standout. It was definitely a fan girl moment that I had on set. There were moments like that, like when I first put in the contacts, and first put on that costume, and to see Hayden in the Clone Wars outfit — there was just so many moments that pulled you out of what we were doing right then and brought you back into that fan who just really enjoyed watching this over the years. It just felt really delicious, really exciting, really fun.
How much is Anakin part of her story moving forward? I know you’re not going to give me a direct answer on that, but we do see Anakin as more of her story after that encounter. She’s watching the training video with him, and there’s that scene at the very end of the season where his force ghost pops up. She’s had this struggle ever since Anakin turned to the dark side, yet they now seem to be aligned again. What can you say in terms of the relationship between those two characters now as we head into season 2?
CHRISTENSEN: You got this one, Rosario.
DAWSON: I will just say that as she puts on that hologram of him, you see that there’s several of them. So I think there’s that potential. But I love, also, not just being relegated to those messages and things that we might be able to see more of in the future. We’ve gotten to see from the films now into the show that he’s been able to become this force ghost that brings him back to Anakin, who at the end of the day, when he went and ascended to that space, that’s what he became.
And I love that she’s got that access point. I love that that peace has continued and you get to see it reflected in him that he gets to enjoy seeing what his legacy has become in a different way. And if Dave Filoni is listening, I hope we get to explore that more, because the road ahead is not going to be easy. And I think that’s been one of the really cool things about this story is a lot of these folks have been able to continue. I’m very into that sort of intergenerational openness of wisdom being passed on, and I would hope that she’d still be able to access that wisdom.
Hayden, I feel like you just did a Jedi mind trick and waved your hand in the air and said, “Rosario will answer this question.”
CHRISTENSEN: [Laughs] Look, as to whether or not we see Anakin again, I don’t know. But as evidenced by that last shot of the series, he’s with her in spirit, and they continue to have this connection.
Read the interview in full here, and stream Christensen and Dawson in Ahsoka on Disney+ now — happy hunting!
