Skywalker Family - Shmi Skywalker Lars

Shmi Skywalker Lars

Shmi Skywalker is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, portrayed by Pernilla August. She appears in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

She is the mother of Anakin Skywalker and paternal grandmother to Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. Her first name is derived from Lakshmi, a Hindu goddess. Also, "shmi" is a Hebrew word meaning "my name."

In The Phantom Menace, she and her son are introduced as slaves of junk merchant Watto on the desert world Tatooine. She welcomes Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) into their home, and tells him that Anakin has no father; she simply became pregnant with him.

Qui-Gon helps Anakin win his freedom, but cannot get Shmi out of slavery. She allows Anakin to leave with Qui-Gon, assuring her heartbroken son that they will meet again.

In Attack of the Clones, Anakin (Hayden Christensen), now a teenaged Jedi apprentice, senses through the Force that she is in pain. He travels to Tatooine to find her, and, upon arriving, learns that she had been freed by and married to moisture farmer Cliegg Lars (Jack Thompson), but had recently been abducted by Tusken Raiders. He finds her inside one of their encampments, but it is too late — beaten and tortured beyond help, she dies in his arms. Enraged, Anakin slaughters every single Tusken in the camp, including the women, children, and every Bantha mount. His mother's death ignites in Anakin a strong phobia of loss, and sets him on the path to becoming Darth Vader.

In the Expanded Universe book Tatooine Ghost, Shmi's granddaughter, Leia, is given Shmi's old journal, which describes Anakin's childhood. Leia learns, through Shmi's love for Anakin, to forgive her father for his role in the destruction of Alderaan and for torturing her aboard the Death Star, as depicted in A New Hope.