Star Wars' Hayden Christensen tried to use the Force (for real) to beat Ewan McGregor at billiards

As Anakin Skywalker, Hayden Christensen wielded the wrong side of the Force against his Star Wars Jedi teacher — and it sounds like the Force may have let him down against reunited costar Ewan McGregor in real life, too. Not that the stakes were as high as in the movies, mind you: Christensen just couldn’t summon the mythic energy needed to ace McGregor in a friendly game of pool.

In what sounds like a vindication of every Star Wars-obsessed fan who ever tried to use the Force to stop their alarm clock or make the traffic light turn green, Christensen recently confessed he’s deployed George Lucas’ game-changing power move in the past himself — all to help him cheat a little at billiards. On top of that, as he confided to Entertainment Weekly, he did it against McGregor himself, his chief nemesis in Lucas’ early-2000s Star Wars prequel trilogy as well as the new Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series at Disney+.

“I remember when we were first starting on Episode II when I was first getting to play the character, I used to do that a little bit,” Christensen told EW. “I remember going to a local bar with Ewan and playing pool and really trying my best to affect where the balls were going using the Force.”

Don’t get your hopes up, though. Even for the guy who portrays the young Darth Vader, racking a billiards win against McGregor takes more than mere mind power. “It never quite worked,” Christensen said. “But you can't help yourself.”

Maybe it was just foreshadowing of how Christensen’s character would fare against his mentor in the molten-spewing depths of Mustafar. Or maybe McGregor, who’d previously told EW he also uses the Force to entertain himself when passing through automatic doors, is just destined to have the high ground. Either way, at least the pair isn’t finished sealing their Star Wars destiny together.

Without straying into spoiler territory, Christensen leaps to life like a pool shark on a winning streak in this week’s third episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, squaring off in a different kind of one-on-one duel that leaves fans with little doubt about how his Force game has evolved since donning Vader’s iconic black cowl. The two share screen time aplenty as the series rounds the halfway point toward its June 22 finale, vying to seize the reins of the Skywalker family line before Luke and Leia grow old enough to discover just who their dark father really is.

Hey, we don’t need a Magic 8 Ball to predict the ultimate outcome of this one, but there’s still comfort in knowing we might stand a chance against Anakin if he reaches for a pool cue instead of a lightsaber. Chalk out a notch on the streaming schedule each Wednesday as Christensen and McGregor square off in new weekly episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Looking for more sci-fi? The entire run of SYFY’s Battlestar Galactica is streaming now on Peacock, along with the second season of Resident Alien, which returns to SYFY this fall with new episodes.