Actor Jake Lloyd is probably best known for his role as the young Anakin Skywalker in the 1999 movie “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.” According to IMDB, he has portrayed the same role in multiple video games based on the movie such as “Star Wars: Anakin’s Speedway” and “Star Wars: Episode I – Jedi Power Battles.”

As a child, Jake also acted in other movies including the Christmas movie “Jingle All the Way” and the TV movie “Host.”

Jake’s most recent acting role was in 2002, 12 years ago. Why did he step away from acting? It was due to his mental health.

Jake’s mother, Lisa Lloyd, recently sat down for an interview with Scripps News. With her son’s permission, she opened up about his mental health struggles through the years, how he’s doing now, and her thoughts about his acting career.

Lisa shared that her son’s mental health struggles started in his teenage years. She explained, “Jake started having some trouble in high school.” She added that one day when she asked him if he had finished his homework, he responded, “Well, I don’t even know if I need to do it. I don’t know which reality I’m in.”

Lisa took her son to a doctor who thought he might have bipolar disorder. They tried various medications to treat the disorder, but nothing helped. Regardless, he graduated from high school and enrolled at Columbia College Chicago. His enrollment didn’t last very long. Lisa explained, “He missed a lot of classes, and he was telling me that people were following him.” She added, “He didn’t tell us he was hearing voices at the time. But he was.” 

He didn’t end up finishing his second semester of college. Instead, Lisa took him multiple therapists and psychiatrists. Eventually, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Finding out that he had schizophrenia led him into “an even worse depression.” Jake didn’t believe that he needed to take medication or see a therapist. Lisa explained, “He didn’t think he needed to take medication because he wasn’t sick. He didn’t think he needed to go to the therapist because there’s nothing wrong with him.”

Sometimes Jake chose not to take his prescribed medication. Instead, he chose to take illicit drugs.

Jake was arrested in 2015 and spent 10 months in jail. During that time, Lisa tried to explain that her son needed medication for his mental illness and that he needed to go to a hospital.

One thing that made the situation even worse was when Jake’s sister Madison, who was two years younger than he was, unexpectedly died in her sleep in 2018 at the age of 26. Lisa explained, “He just couldn’t handle it. He didn’t know how to process it.”

Then, in 2023, Jake had a psychotic break. Lisa and Jake were on the way home from McDonalds when he wanted to stop the car in the middle of the road. Drivers ended up calling 911. When the police arrived and talked to Jake, “He was talking to them, but none of it made sense. It was all word salad.” Instead of going to jail, Jake went to the hospital.

Jake is currently 10 months into an 18-month stay at a mental health rehabilitation facility. Lisa is hopeful that this time, the treatment he receives will help. She said, “He’s doing much better than I expected. 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.”

Watch the video below to hear more of what Lisa had to say about her son’s mental health and to hear if she thinks acting in Star Wars had anything to do with his mental health struggles.