There are many actors who have worked on Star Wars over the years, and no character is as iconic as Darth Vader, the former Anakin Skywalker.
This post will review the actors who have played Darth Vader over the years. We will be restricting it to canon screen performances only, so don’t expect to see the voice actors from the video games, including the Jedi games or the LEGO franchise. This doesn’t include actors who have yet to play Anakin Skywalker.
First, we have the most iconic pairing of them all: David Prowse and James Earl Jones. While filming the original trilogy, Prowse was the man inside the Darth Vader suit. He spoke the lines on set, but it was Jones who did the voice work for the character through a lot of the film and television appearances.
Jones has since retired from voicing the character as he is now in his 90s, but his voice lives on as he signed over the rights for his voice to be used for Vader in future Star Wars projects. His last ‘credit’ was on Obi-Wan Kenobi, where Hayden Christensen was inside the suit alongside a body double. However, it is possible that Jones didn’t provide new dialogue for the show.
Return Of The Jedi
When Return of the Jedi was released in 1983, Sebastian Shaw was the man who was unmasked during Vader’s death scene. He was also used as Anakin’s force ghost until the film was rereleased in 2004. Hayden Christensen replaced Shaw as the Force Ghost of Anakin.
The next one is Hayden Christensen, whom we mentioned earlier. He played Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith when Anakin is sealed inside the suit. James Earl Jones provided the voice but wanted to be uncredited as he wished for Hayden’s performance to shine through more than his.
Obi-Wan Kenobi And Ahsoka
For Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hayden, and two others were inside the Darth Vader suit at different times. These two others include performance artist Dmitrious Bistrevsky and stuntman Tom O’Connell. O’Connell would serve as the Vader performance artist on Ahsoka in the short snippets we see.
Rebels
Another actor who has voiced Vader – so to speak – is Matt Lanter during the Star Wars Rebels Season 2 finale. His voice was merged with Jones’ when Ahsoka slices open the Sith Lord’s helmet.
This same technique was used in Obi-Wan Kenobi when the titular character does the thing with Hayden’s voice being merged with Jones’.
