How many times does one get a chance to talk to a Jedi Master? Certainly few, but this afternoon, on the other side of the Zoom, Ewan McGregor talks with La República about the long-awaited premiere of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, which arrives on the Disney+ platform this Friday the 27th. The 51-year-old Scottish actor is ready to play the most emblematic Jedi in the Star Wars universe (after Yoda) and reveal to millions of fans the story that followed this character after the events that occurred in episode 3 of the saga, when his young apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, succumbed to the dark side of the force.
During the 8 minutes of the interview, McGregor confesses that he has been reunited with Obi-Wan and that he has enjoyed working with Hayden Christensen (Darth Vader) again. And something else, who loves Peru. “I had a great time in Peru when I did my motorcycle trip in 2019, we went all over the country. It was lovely. I loved it”.
How difficult has it been to return to a character like Obi-Wan Kenobi after almost 20 years since your last performance in Revenge of the Sith? Is it true that you had to rediscover the voice of Alec Guinness?
(Laughter). The first thing I did in front of a camera again as Obi-Wan Kenobi was in a casting. There was a character in the series that we had to choose between three actors. We went to the studio The Mandalorian One Sunday, they lent us a part of his set and his equipment and we shot some scenes with this character and Obi-Wan.
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But this was months before we started shooting and I hadn’t prepared much beyond reading the script. So when I started reading, I realized that my voice no longer sounded as much like Alec Guinness or me in the prequels. So I had to re-study his voice, his way of speaking, his rhythms, his patterns in A New Hope. After that, the character quickly came back to me.
As the protagonist and producer of the series, what is your vision for this version of Obi-Wan Kenobi? How would you describe it?
We are between episode 3 and 4, there are many threats that happen in the middle of these movies that we know very well and I think it will be very satisfying for the fans to see and feel that. It’s an exploration of a character we know and love from Alec Guinness’ portrayal and from my work on the prequels.
This Jedi leader that we saw, first as a Padawan with his master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and then as a Consul with Yoda, this glorious character, you will see him completely broken, 10 years after what happens in episode 3, where he has lost all his friends, who, if not dead, are in hiding or unable to communicate, and whose only responsibility in his life is Luke Skywalker who is on Tatooine and whom he has just left with his uncles. We are going to see a very different Obi-Wan.
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How was the meeting with Hayden Christensen, are you as close in real life as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker (before he became Darth Vader) were? Did they cross lightsabers again?
I don’t want to give any plot details because I want the fans to have the best experience when they see it, but working with Hayden, again, was a pleasure. We had a great experience in Australia filming episodes 2 and 3 in 2000 and 2003 and getting the chance to hang out with him again was invigorating.
Time did not feel. He is a very nice man, I love him very much. I haven’t seen him in a long time because he lives in Canada and he comes and goes; Our paths haven’t crossed for years, but it was great to work with him again. And it’s interesting to see him as Vader, because he was Anakin before, so he’s pretty cool.
In the past, fans criticized the Star Wars trilogy where you participated, even you yourself expressed your disappointment. Today things have changed. Why do you think this has happened? Has there been a noticeable growth in the Star Wars prequels?
When the prequels came out, the reception we had was a bit disappointing, the criticism was quite negative. It was very difficult to do that trilogy, especially episodes 2 and 3, there was a lot of green screen and blue screen, because George (Lucas) was in pioneering mode with the crews and the visual effects, and he wanted to explore that as much as he could.
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That was very new, but for the actors it was almost always being in front of a green screen. It’s hard for things to feel real when something isn’t there. In episode 2 I spent a lot of time walking around very tall aliens who weren’t there, talking to a tennis ball tied to a stick or in the air. And coming out and seeing the bad reviews was tough.
But over the years, we began to hear the voices of the people we made these movies for: the kids who grew up watching those movies not as prequels. The new generations embraced that and this trilogy is their Star Wars, just as Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Alec Guinness’s was mine. It’s taken a while to feel that warmth from people, but now I feel it, and it was part of the decision I made to do a new story with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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