Jake Lloyd, the actor who played the young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, is currently in hospital after suffering what his mother described as a “full-blown psychotic break” in March 2023.
While the film has been celebrating its 25th anniversary recently, the now 35-year-old has been absent from the coverage and has largely remained out of the spotlight since the film was released.
His mother Lisa gave an exclusive interview to Scripps News about her son’s life after Star Wars, revealing that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in his 20s, having first started experiencing symptoms while in high school.
“Jake started having some trouble in high school,” Lisa said. “He started talking about ‘realities’. He didn’t know if he was in this reality, or a different reality. I didn’t really know exactly what to say to that.”
One day, Lisa asked her son if he’d finished his homework. “And he was like, ‘Well, I don’t even know if I need to do it. I don’t know which reality I’m in,’” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, you’re in my reality today, so you have to do your homework.’”
Lisa also said that a doctor had suggested he had bipolar disorder and tried numerous medications to help him manage his symptoms but nothing worked.
When he went to college, he told his mother “that people were following him” and he also frequently missed classes. He would sometimes mention seeing people with “black eyes” staring at him on the street, and having late-night conversations with Daily Show host Jon Stewart through his TV.
“He didn’t tell us he was hearing voices at the time. But he was,” she added.
Lloyd was diagnosed with schizophrenia after dropping out of college, which worsened his mental health. “When they finally told him, it totally threw him off into an even worse depression. It was really hard.”
His condition was exacerbated by a neurological condition called anosognosia, which causes a patient to be unaware of, or unconsciously in denial, about their symptoms.
“He didn’t think he needed to take medication because he wasn’t sick,” Lisa said. “He didn’t think he needed to go to the therapist because there’s nothing wrong with him.”
He later went to prison for 10 months in 2015 after police said he led them on a multi-county chase before crashing his car, while he wasn’t taking his medication. Lisa wanted him to go to hospital instead but found out there were no available beds.
The “psychotic break” that happened last year took place as she was driving him home after getting food from McDonald’s. “He said he wanted to turn the car off. And he turned the car off in the middle of the three lanes, and we were in the middle lane,” Lisa recalled. “There was a lot of yelling and screaming.”
Drivers stuck in the middle lane called the police, and when they questioned Lloyd, “none of” what he was telling them made sense.
He was then admitted to hospital and was transferred to an in-patient mental health facility. Currently, he is 10 months into an 18-month stay and has shown remarkable signs of improvement.
“He’s doing much better than I expected,” Lisa said. “He is relating to people better and becoming a little bit more social, which is really nice. It’s kind of like having more of the old Jake back, because he has always been incredibly social until he became schizophrenic.”
She also commented on his reasons for walking away from Hollywood. “People say he quit because of Star Wars. Well, that’s not true. It didn’t have anything to do with Star Wars. It had more to do with our family. And we were going through a divorce,” Lisa explained. “Things were unsettled and kind of rough. And Jake didn’t seem to be having a lot of fun auditioning anymore.”
She continued: “Jake loved filming Star Wars. He had so much fun. I would love for him to get well enough to be able to do a little bit of something, and I’m sure he would maybe like to do that. He couldn’t at this point, but you never know how much he’s going to improve. So we’ll see.”
For help and advice on mental health:
- CALM – The Campaign Against Living Miserably
- Help Musicians UK – Around the clock mental health support and advice for musicians (CALL MUSIC MINDS MATTER ON: 0808 802 8008)
- Music Support Org – Help and support for musicians struggling with alcoholism, addiction, or mental health issues (CALL: 0800 030 6789)
- YOUNG MINDS – The voice for young people’s health and wellbeing
- Time To Change – Let’s end mental health discrimination
- The Samaritans – Confidential support 24 hours a day