Jake Broadbent, the actor best known for playing Anakin Skywalker as a child in “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” has been moved from a jail cell to a psychiatric facility.
Broadbent, 27, also known as Jake Lloyd, was arrested last June after allegedly leading South Carolina police on a high-speed chase.
Broadbent was charged with failure to stop for officers and resisting arrest, police said.
According to TMZ, Broadbent has remained in jail since last June.
His mother told TMZ that authorities recently decided that Broadbent “needed help more than punishment, because he suffers from schizophrenia.”
Broadbent’s mother says she can already see an improvement in her son’s personality since he moved to the psychiatric hospital.
Broadbent, whose film credit for “Star Wars” is as “Jake Lloyd,” said in 2012 that the film made his childhood difficult and was the reason he gave up acting.
“Other children were really mean to me,” he said. “They would make the sound of the light saber every time they saw me. It was totally mad. … My entire school life was really a living hell.”
