Shmi Skywalker
Pernilla August is only in Phantom Menace for its middle act on Tatooine, but even with the little she has, she turns in an incredibly touching performance as Anakin’s mother. The way she has to try and play between the unease of not knowing what her son is capable of, to the mirrored joy and despair of Qui-Gon earning his freedom but not hers, Shmi is a character that has to really land to make Anakin’s arc across the prequels work at its fundamental core—the emotional attachment that defines everything about Anakin’s sense of justice and his ethos as he grows into the troubled young man of the later films. And it lands because of August’s understated performance.
