Padmé Amidala

• 1. Introduction

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  Padmé Amidala enters the Star Wars universe as the teenage queen of Naboo, a planet under military occupation. She is fourteen years old, recently elected, and already facing a trade blockade that threatens her people's survival. The character who first appeared in the 1999 film The Phantom Menace would go on to shape the entire prequel trilogy. Her decisions would help place a tyrant in power. Her secret marriage would give rise to the two heroes of the original trilogy. And her death would haunt one of cinema's most iconic villains for decades.

  Natalie Portman, who was eighteen when she was cast, portrays Padmé across all three prequel films. The character also extends far beyond the cinema: she appears in animated series, novels, comics, and video games. George Lucas, who described her as the mother whose daughter follows so closely in her footsteps, had been thinking about this character since the writing of the original trilogy. When Lucas began planning the prequels, Padmé was not an afterthought. She was the connective tissue between two generations of Star Wars storytelling.

• 2. The Queen of Naboo

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  Naboo's occupation by the Trade Federation sets the terms of Padmé's first film entirely. She negotiates with Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray, who tries to force her to sign a treaty legitimizing the occupation. She refuses, escapes with the help of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi, and charts a course for Coruscant to appeal to the Senate. A damaged ship forces the group to land on Tatooine, where Padmé, disguised as a handmaiden, meets a nine-year-old slave named Anakin Skywalker.

  She watches Anakin win a podrace that simultaneously funds the ship's repair and secures his freedom. It is the beginning of a bond that will define both their lives. On Coruscant, Senator Palpatine steers Padmé toward a fateful move: she sponsors a motion to remove Supreme Chancellor Valorum, which opens the path for Palpatine's own election as chancellor. The character who represents peace and resistance is, without knowing it, the instrument of the galaxy's eventual authoritarianism.

  Returning to Naboo, she allies with Jar Jar Binks and the Gungan tribe. Their army draws the Federation's droid forces into the open while a small team led by Padmé enters the palace and captures Gunray, ending the occupation. The victory is real, but Palpatine now holds the chancellorship she handed him.

• 3. Senator and Secret Wife

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  Attack of the Clones (2002) opens ten years after Naboo's liberation. Padmé now represents her planet in the Galactic Senate and leads a faction opposing the Military Creation Act, a bill that would raise an army of clones for the Republic. The moment she arrives on Coruscant to cast her vote, assassins hired by the Separatists attempt to kill her. Anakin and Obi-Wan are assigned to protect her.

  Palpatine sends Padmé into hiding on Naboo, where she and Anakin struggle to hold back their feelings. When Anakin has a vision of his mother in danger, Padmé goes with him to Tatooine. His mother, Shmi, dies shortly after they find her. Anakin tells Padmé that he killed the entire Tusken tribe responsible. She is troubled by this confession but still comforts him.

  Capture and a near-execution on Geonosis by the Separatist leader Count Dooku force the confession neither has been willing to make: facing death, Padmé and Anakin declare their love. They survive when Mace Windu and Yoda lead a rescue of Jedi and clone troopers. Afterward, in a ceremony attended only by the droids C-3PO and R2-D2, they marry in secret on Naboo. Jedi are forbidden from marrying, so the union must stay hidden. It is a secret that will eventually cost Padmé her life.

• 4. The Death of the Republic

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  Revenge of the Sith (2005) is set three years after the wedding. Padmé tells Anakin she is pregnant, and his visions of her dying in childbirth begin immediately. Palpatine exploits that fear with a precise claim: the dark side holds the power to prevent her death. Anakin turns. Padmé watches the Senate grant Palpatine emergency powers, strip away democratic protections, and transform the Republic into the Galactic Empire. At the moment Palpatine declares himself Emperor, Padmé speaks the line that became her most quoted: "So this is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause."

  Obi-Wan brings her the truth about Anakin: he has killed everyone in the Jedi Temple, including children. Unable to accept this, she travels to the volcanic planet Mustafar, where Anakin is assassinating the last Separatist leaders. She begs him to walk away from Palpatine. He asks her to help him seize control of the galaxy. When Obi-Wan emerges from her ship, Anakin accuses her of betrayal and uses the Force to strangle her unconscious.

• 5. Casting and Performance

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  Lucasfilm's concept artists described the fourteen-year-old queen as resembling Princess Ozma from L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz novels. Lucas auditioned more than two hundred actresses before choosing Natalie Portman, who was eighteen at the time of casting. Concept artist Iain McCaig said she projected both vulnerability and strength, the same qualities he associated with Ozma.

  Portman believed the role would be empowering for young female viewers. She worked with Lucas on Padmé's accent and mannerisms, and studied the films of Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, and Katharine Hepburn for guidance on voice and bearing. She was relatively new to the Star Wars franchise when cast and watched the original trilogy before filming.

  Critics were not kind to the performance. James Berardinelli called her work in The Phantom Menace "lackluster." Annlee Ellingson of Box Office Magazine described it as "stiff and flat." Ed Halter of The Village Voice wrote that computer-generated characters in Revenge of the Sith "emoted more convincingly" than Portman or Hayden Christensen. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle offered a more measured view, calling her Revenge of the Sith portrayal "decorative and sympathetic." Despite the critical reception, her performances in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith both earned her Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress.

• 6. Costumes as Character

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  Costume designer Trisha Biggar initially planned only three outfits for Padmé. Lucas overruled that number immediately. His reasoning: a monarch of her standing would change clothes for every occasion. The result was a wardrobe that drew on fashions from Japan, Mongolia, Tibet, and other countries, and it grew into one of the most elaborate costume programs in the prequel trilogy.

  Lucas's stated goal was to signal a contrast between galactic eras. The prequel society is more sophisticated, and the clothes reflect that. For Attack of the Clones, he shifted register entirely: he asked Biggar to make Padmé's costumes "skimpy" and "sultry" to match the film's romantic storyline. The wardrobe eventually traveled beyond the screen. Padmé's garments were exhibited at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles in 2005, and returned to museum display at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 2018.

• 7. Beyond the Films

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  The 2008 animated film The Clone Wars introduced a new voice for Padmé: Catherine Taber, who continued the role in the television series of the same name. In the series, Padmé works primarily in the Senate toward a peaceful resolution to the Clone Wars, though several episodes show her fighting alongside Anakin, Ahsoka Tano, and Jar Jar Binks. Her relationship with a former colleague, Rush Clovis, repeatedly triggers Anakin's jealousy. Taber also voiced Padmé in the web series Forces of Destiny, which ran from 2017 to 2018.

  Author E. K. Johnston wrote three novels centered on Padmé, collectively known as the Queen's Series. Queen's Shadow (2018) is set four years after The Phantom Menace and shows Padmé transitioning from queen to senator while working to liberate slaves on Tatooine, though she cannot free Anakin's mother Shmi. Queen's Peril (2020) goes back further, covering events before and during The Phantom Menace. Queen's Hope (2022) takes up the story after the secret marriage.

  In the Legends continuity, which was declared non-canon after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, Padmé's history extends in multiple directions. The 2005 novel Labyrinth of Evil explores her role in the Delegation of 2000, a senatorial resistance movement formed in response to Palpatine's push for public surveillance and restrictions on freedom of movement. Padmé is confident, in that novel, that Palpatine will relinquish his emergency powers once the crisis ends. That confidence is, of course, catastrophically misplaced. The Joiner King (2005), the first book of the Legends Dark Nest trilogy, gives Luke his first glimpse of his mother's face, via a hologram recorded by R2-D2 of Anakin describing his vision of her death.