Rebel Moon Star Charlie Hunnam Says He Almost Played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Prequels

Audiences are a few days away from the release of Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, a movie that’s widely been described as Zack Snyder’s take on Star Wars. In a new interview, one of the film’s stars — Charlie Hunnam — actually revealed that he had auditioned to play Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Obviously the job eventually went to Hayden Christensen, but Hunnam was apparently close enough that he took a meeting with George Lucas personally, and he believes he was in the top handful of choices. That said, it doesn’t seem like a huge regret for the actor.

Not only did Hunnam admit that he knew before leaving the room that he had blown the meeting and wouldn’t get the part, but he also seemingly forgot all about it. It wasn’t until ET‘s Ash Crossan quizzed him on it that he realized he had come so close.

“I had forgotten that until you said that, but yes I did. Years and years ago, I met George Lucas,” Hunnam told Entertainment Tonight. “I got to the point where I was meeting George Lucas, which…I don’t think he meets a lot of actors. I think it was maybe two, three actors they were considering. I don’t remember much about it. I remember that I was nervous, and I was a little bit awkward and I just remember walking out and thinking, ‘Well, I’m definitely not getting that role,’ and I was correct.”

Rebel Moon is set in a peaceful colony on the edge of the galaxy that finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius. They dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighboring planets to help them take a stand the Tyrant.

Eric Newman, who produced Snyder’s take on Dawn of the Dead in 2004, will produce this film, too. Ironically, Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead was written by James Gunn, whose Guardians of the Galaxy generated dozens of think-pieces linking him to, and eventually asking him about, new Star Wars that might be in his future. For Gunn, the idea didn’t hold any appeal, as he said he would rather create stories from the ground up…which is kind of what Snyder is now doing.

Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire is set for release on Netflix on December 22.