There will only ever be one topic of conversation in which the names Leonardo DiCaprio and Hayden Christensen will be uttered in the same breath - and it's not going to be when discussing one's favorite actors of the past decade. You could give Christensen's performance as Anakin Skywalker the benefit of the doubt and say that any performance, after having the promise of Di Caprio, is going to leave audiences feeling a little short-changed. This is not the case. There is no refuting the fact that Christensen somehow manages to make a universe of extra moons, giant space battles and a little green talking koala bear dull. Had it been Di Caprio on show, it may have been an entirely different result. There's no question that Anakin's character arc is certainly within Di Caprio's range (as he subsequently demonstrated across three films - The Departed, Shutter Island and Django Unchained) and his commitment to a role would have lent more credibility to the transformation from innocent youth to one of cinema's most notorious villains. Alas, the now five-time Academy Award nominee turned down the role stating that:
"Yeah, I turned down Anakin and Spider-Man straight away. I read almost all of the scripts but 92 per cent, to give you a precise number, are pure cr*p. Usually when I want to do something, I know immediately, and then I do it."
So he turned it down to move on to other (some might say more compelling) projects leaving Lucas to cast a relative unknown that left the director somewhat with egg on his face.
