HE played an iconic role in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.

Jake Lloyd had the world at his feet and should have been the envy of every child in the world after playing Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace when he was eight.

Instead, the Star Wars actor quit the film industry after his childhood was turned into a "living hell".

The 22-year-old became so haunted by the movie growing up he vowed never to act again and has stayed true to his word.

"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."

Lloyd recalls how busy his young life became and at one point he was doing around 60 interviews a day.

"My entire school life was really a living hell - and I had to do up to 60 interviews a day."

Lloyd felt so much anger towards the George Lucas-directed film that he destroyed all of his Star Wars memorabilia, and only reprised his role as Anakin for five video games.

The youngster decided to take early retirement from acting as he was no longer able to fit in at school.

"I've learned to hate it when the cameras are pointed at me," he told a magazine.

Lloyd, whose mother is an entertainment agent, admitted in an interview with Scifitv.com that he doesn't like watching the film anymore and he blames George Lucas for that.

"When you have something like that there's a lot of expectations for it to meet the standards of the public and I don't think George did that.

"For me to go back and watch it now would be kind of creepy."

Originally published as 'Star Wars made my life a living hell'