Ewan McGregor said it was a “different experience” to reprise the role of Star Wars icon Obi-Wan Kenobi after nearly two decades.
He Scottish actor leads the cast of the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series for Disney+, returning to the character he played in three Star Wars prequels from 1999 to 2005.
McGregor, 51, said of the new production: “I think the writing in this series was great.
“The script went through several different iterations, it was going to be a movie, it was going to be directed by Stephen Daldry at one point and then Deborah Chow became the director.
“I think after a long process of filming and then a TV show, and many different story iterations, we ended up with a really good one.
“A lot of time and effort was spent on writing. I always thought my lines were very Alec Guinness-y, I always felt like him and that’s a good sign for me.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi first appeared in six Star Wars films, played by the late theater and film great Sir Alec in episodes IV–VI from 1977 to 1983, and then by McGregor in episodes I–III.
The Scottish actor said: “It was technically a different experience 20 years ago, so it’s definitely a different world.”
The actor revealed that years after the prequel films came out, there was a reaction from fans that encouraged him to reprise the role.
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Ewan McGregor (Ian West / PA)
He said: “I found out what kind of warmth there was to the prequels – when they came out, we didn’t understand that.
“When they came out, there was no social media, I wasn’t aware of how the fans felt about the movies, all I knew was that the critics didn’t like them, or about the movies. What was written was always negative.
“I’ve never been one of the kind for fans’ reactions, but the noise we kept coming back from the original movies was awful.
“Critics decided they didn’t like them, that they were too different from the original Star Wars movies of the ’70s.
“We put all this time and effort into making the best out of old-fashioned technology, and that was hard to do.
“After all that effort as well as the excitement of being cast as Obi Wan Kenobi in the first place, to step into Guinness’s shoes and go into that big world of Star Wars and then get a bad reaction to it.” For , it was tough and it took years to hear and realize that for those movies it’s really from the people we made them.
“It felt good to have that kind of warmth for him for so long, it meant something to me and it was definitely part of my decision to do it again.”
McGregor revealed that he watched all the original Star Wars movies and heard audio of Sir Alec’s performance when he returned to the role he shared.
“The first time I got to play Obi Wan Kenobi was for a casting session.
“I got down there to the studio and they arranged a sort of Obi-Wan-esque outfit hanging in the cupboard, it wasn’t really the stuff I’d worn before, but it was similar.
“I put it on and it was the first time I’d worn her clothes for 17 years, so it was weird looking in the mirror and thinking ‘here we go’.
“I went out on set and of course, nowadays, what’s cute is a lot of the crew are real Star Wars fans, so there was kind of a buzz when I first walked out on set as Obi Wan.
“I started doing these scenes with these actors and I didn’t have their voices, I didn’t really prepare enough. It didn’t sound like that.
So when I started going back to all the original movies, I asked them to make a sound file with just all of Alec Guinness’ lines from all three movies, and it’s not a lot you know. ,
The actor also praised Sir Alec, who died in 2000, for his ability to only be in “a handful of scenes” but remain such a beloved character.
The new Star Wars spin-off series begins 10 years after the events of the film Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faces the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker.
The series is part of a collection of live-action Star Wars shows being built for Disney+.
