DiCaprio as Anakin, Ralph Fiennes or Russel Crowe as Obi Wan ?

[BadrHari]

Not sure if this was Lucas' first choice or just the concept artist's dream casting choice....But pretty interesting, never the less.....

 

[hippie_hunter]

DiCaprio as Anakin would have been amazing. The movie would have still sucked, the Prequels had an amazing cast and made all of them boring. Even Hayden Christensen gets unfair criticism for his take on Anakin IMO.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I agree. Hayden Christensen is a decent actor. You just can't work with those lines.

Harrison Ford said it best "George, you can type this ****, but you can't say it".

 

[Scarlet Spider]

DiCaprio playing Anakin was the BIG rumor everyone was talking about back then, right after TPM was released. There was some truth to it. He confirmed that he took a meeting with George Lucas back then but nothing came of it.

 

[Thundercrack85]

DiCaprio playing Anakin was the BIG rumor everyone was talking about back then, right after TPM was released. There was some truth to it. He confirmed that he took a meeting with George Lucas back then but nothing came of it.

Maybe he was a Star Wars fan.

 

[BadrHari]

I did a little research on Leo and the Anakin role.

Leo was a SW fan and Lucas daughters loved DiCaprio. So Lucas invited him to the ranch in 1999 for a private screening of TPM and then Lucas hung out with Leo all day...

Leo met with Lucas about the role of Anakin, but it was just one meeting and Leo didnt want to do it. In an interview Leo discussed turning down the role. He said "I wasn't ready for that kind of role at that point in my career". This is a line actors use as instructed by their publicist when they actually mean "That script was garbage, no way I want to do that sheet".

Years later, Leo bragged in another interview that he was proud he turned down franchise roles such as Spider-Man & Star Wars.

Ironically Jake Lloyd looks like a young DiCaprio. I think Lucas might have wanted Leo in that role , esp when Spielberg knew Leo pretty well and eventually used him in Catch me if you Can. Spielberg probably also discussed Leo with Lucas. Spielberg also worked with Liam Neeson in his oscar winning film Schindler's List, which was Lucas first choice for the star of TPM. Lucas also had concept art of Ralph Fiennes (also in Schindler's List) as Obi Wan Kenobi - but nothing confirmed he wanted Fiennes.

And although the prequels were god awful films, Leo would have been the absolute no doubt best choice for the role of a young Darth Vader, the most iconic movie character of all time. He had the acting chops, the look and the charisma to nail that role. But Leo is smart or has smart enough ppl to identify what scripts are worth doing because Leo has picked some AMAZING work !! I wasn't even a big fan of the guy, but Romeo + Juliet, Titanic, The Departed, Inception, Blood Diamond, Body of Lies, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Wolf of Wallstreet, Man in the Iron Mask - the guy RARELY takes on a bad movie !! I even enjoyed The Great Gatsby.

 

[XStreme Skins]

I agree. Hayden Christensen is a decent actor. You just can't work with those lines.

Harrison Ford said it best "George, you can type this ****, but you can't say it".

Yep that's why the Prequels never reached their full potential because their weren't enough guys to tell George what he needed to hear. He had to many yes men and not enough no men. Its a shame because when Lucas heard criticism he listened and changed things around (we saw less Jar Jar in the movies). At that point he and all his people bought into the whole "modern day mythmaker" because of Star Wars success.

Ironically the whole reason why it was so successful was because people would tell Lucas do this instead of that. This would be a better idea instead of that, etc, etc. It's doubly sad because GL would have taken critiques during the Preqs and we could have had a really good trilogy instead of a solid one.

 

[Herofan]

I now do think DiCaprio would have been better as Anakin, at least just a bit more charisma (probably including at least some dark charisma later on) and also looking more like both Jake Lloyd and Mark Hamill. But I wouldn't have wanted him to do it if he wouldn't have done Catch Me If You Can.

Crowe is a good actor, Ralph Fiennes is very hit-and-miss but sorry they wouldn't have improved Obi-Wan at all, there the flaws were really from the script.

 

[Frodo]

Ironically, before the prequels actually became a reality, , I wanted Liam Neeson as Anakin , Kenneth Branagh as Obi Wan, and Kirsten Scott Thomas as "Luke and Leia's mother".
At that point, her character didn't have a name.

This was also before I knew that Anakin was supposed to be alot younger than Obi Wan, and that they were going to have him be a kid.

All I had to go off of as a teen was some lines of dialog from ROTJ since that was basically all that was out there for the general audience in the early 90s in terms of backstory. That's different from those who bought the books and comics which weren't the majority of people then.
I wasn't into all the books and comics.

I was surprised when Liam's casting for another role was announced.

 

[Eddie Dean]

I believe Kenneth was up for it.