As Watto goes out back with Qui-Gon Jinn and Artoo to find the hyperdrive generator, Padme discovers more about the scruffy yet highly intelligent, life-experienced young human boy who may be a slave, but is nonetheless still a person: Anakin Skywalker.
A couple of extra lines of dialogue were filmed but cut after Anakin sweetly asks Padme if she's an 'angel" from one of the Moons of Iego.
PADME: I've never heard of angels.
ANAKIN: You must be one...maybe you just don't know it.
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| Images from the screen test of Jake Lloyd with Natalie Portman at Skywalker Ranch. |
From a specially controlled worldwide overview of over 7,000 young actors, the search for the actor to play young Anakin Skywalker was whittled down to three American talents (Jake Lloyd, Devon Michael and Michael Angarano) who'd screen test with Natalie Portman as Padme at Skywalker Ranch in early 1997. From this video tape testing, conducted by a table with a selection of junk and electronic props, the cherubic and innocent-looking Jake Lloyd, then best known for his appearance alongside superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Xmas comedy Jingle all the Way, deservedly won the coveted role and captured the hearts of Lucas and the production team.
"I first met Jake (Lloyd) when he was five, and every time I would go to Los Angeles for another casting session I'd bring Jake in again. He had all those elements that I was looking for in the character when we initially met, but he was just physically too young. But as he matured, and as I was getting closer to the date of having to decide on which actors I wanted for specific roles, it just converged. By the time I was ready, he was old enough, and it was perfect."
Robin Gurland - 1999
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| Jake Lloyd has fun with Robin Gurland and a Millennium Falcon toy during filming. |
"It was Jake because he was extremely intelligent, intuitive and had the physical look hands down. He also had a way of saying, thinking and doing that was a little off-centre, you never quite expected what you got from him."
Robin Gurland - Empire magazine - August 1999
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| Anakin had a further filmed deleted line to Padme: "You are a strange girl to me." |
"Most of the first year of casting was primarily the kid, because we didn't know where we were going to go. Robin (Gurland- Casting Director) went everywhere, she went to France, Germany, England, and all over the States.
We didn't know where the kid was going to be, but we knew we were going to have to look at seven-year olds and track them until they were nine."
Rick McCallum - Empire magazine - August 1999
Robin Gurland on EPISODE I's casting: https://www.starwars.com/video/casting-director
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