MIAMI.- He actor Jake Lloyd, who gave life to the popular Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Jamie Langston in the Christmas movie Jingle All the Way, He was admitted ten months ago to a center rehabilitation due to a paranoid schizophrenic episode.
His mother, Lisa Lloyd, revealed in an interview she gave to the magazine Scripps News that the interpreter suffers from this condition from an early age, and has had to undergo treatments that he must comply with for the rest of his life.
Lloyd rejected comments that it was exposure to fame at such a young age, which among various consequences also led to bullying and negative reviews of the film, which caused problems of mental health in his son. He asserted that if he had not been a child actor the problem would have developed, since his psychiatrist considers that she has a congenital pathology.
“It would have happened anyway. I think it was genetic. And his psychiatrist also agrees that Jake was going to become schizophrenic. Everyone makes a big deal of that. And it’s quite upsetting to me because Jake was a little boy.” when it came out, and I didn’t really feel all that because I didn’t let it,” he commented, referring to the fact that I didn’t allow him to be aware of the bad reviews the film received.
Lisa also pointed out that as a family they were going through a difficult time; Not only was she facing media attention, but she and Jake’s father were also separating.
“People say I resigned because Star Wars to the performance. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with our family. And we were going through a divorce. “Things were unstable and a little difficult.”
Mental health
Likewise, the mother clarified that it was not the pathology that kept the boy from acting, but rather that he seemed to have lost interest. “Jake didn’t seem to have much fun auditioning anymore,” she added.
The woman remembered that the problem began to manifest itself during school days, when she began to notice that the child’s personality was altered and he talked about topics that did not make sense.
“Jake started having some problems in high school. 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,” she said.
After a visit to the doctor, the young man was diagnosed with bipolarity. His mother remembers that they prescribed treatments that never worked. However, he managed to graduate and enter Columbia College Chicago. However, it was during this period that his mental health worsened.
Lloyd began to state that people saw him with black eyes or that he was talking on television with the presenter Daily Show Jon Stewart. “He missed a lot of classes, and he told me that people followed him. He didn’t tell us that he was hearing voices at that time. But he did.”
It was in 2008, after dropping out of college and going to live with his mother in Indiana, that doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia; But this only led to a deep depression and the young man did not take his medication or attend therapy, which made everything worse.
Admission to rehabilitation
After multiple episodes that even led him to have problems with the law, his mother recalled that it was in March 2023 when a psychotic break revealed the seriousness of his condition.
Jake suddenly braked on a three-lane highway and she was in the passenger seat. When the police arrived, he was taken to a hospital where he was detained for two months and later admitted to the center where he is now, where he is completing an 18-month program.
“He’s doing a lot better than I expected, he’s getting a little more social. It’s like getting more of the old Jake back, because he was always incredibly social until he became schizophrenic.”
Jake is currently 35 years old and his mother stressed that, unlike what people may believe, she stated that for Jake he will be in Star Wars It was an experience that he enjoyed very much and he still likes everything that has to do with the universe created by George Lucas.
“He had a lot of fun. I would love for him to recover enough to be able to do something, and I’m sure he might like that. He can’t right now, but you never know how much better he’s going to get. So we’ll see. We are in a much better place. We all love Jake and want to be close to him. I just want him to be happy,” he said.
