Obi Wan We Meet Again at Last
Information technology did not take Ewan McGregor long to realize there was a disturbance in the forcefulness. The actor noticed something was askew as soon as he stepped onto the Obi-Wan Kenobi soundstage. "I came round the set, and it was just this ring of people standing around."
Non quite sure what all the commotion was about, a confused McGregor took his position in the frame — a look of puzzlement on his face not seen since the nefarious Count Dooku dropped a Sith Lord truth flop on the Jedi Master dorsum on Geonosis. "I had the cameras behind me looking downward this street, and behind the cameras were 100 people standing there," recalls McGregor. "They're usually in places doing work, non just continuing. I couldn't quite piece of work out what was happening."
It wasn't Obi-Wan they were there to see. "And then Vader comes around the corner, into the street, and I was like, 'Ah, f---. Of class!'"
Honestly, tin can you blame them? Seventeen years (in Earth time) since they last crossed lightsabers in the fiery depths of Mustafar, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader are set up to face up off on screen in one case once more, in the new Disney+ series debuting May 25. And with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reprising their roles as the dynamic — and doomed — duo, anticipation is as high equally the Nighttime Lord's famed midi-chlorian count.
It is a reunion that once seemed incommunicable, and to fully grasp the enormity of the moment, one has to go back to the very start.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER, encounter OBI-WAN KENOBI.
Christensen all the same remembers the showtime time he met McGregor. The Canadian thespian had just been plucked from relative obscurity by Star Wars creator George Lucas to play a teenage Anakin Skywalker in Assault of the Clones when he arrived on a soundstage in Sydney. The nervous newcomer, who had been appearing in loftier school plays less than a twelvemonth prior, walked into the hair-and-makeup room to see the man who would be portraying his friend-turned-foe.
"I remember as soon equally you saw me," he smiles to McGregor over a Zoom chat. "You said, 'Hayden!' We'd never met before, but you said my proper noun like nosotros were lifelong friends and gave me a big hug and welcomed me into the family unit. The warmth of your greeting left such a lasting impression and meant a lot."
Perhaps the warm welcome was because McGregor could draw upon the apprehension he felt when joining the franchise a few years prior for The Phantom Menace. Established every bit a hot up-and-comer thanks to acclaimed roles in films including Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, McGregor admits that "Star Wars didn't really experience correct to me" when he began the casting process. "Initially I was quite skeptical about doing it. I just idea, ''Well, I'k this independent, urban-y, grungy player over hither. I'm not this kind of guy.'"
That big-budget anxiety eventually turned to excitement, however, and past Attack of the Clones, it was McGregor's turn to help ease Christensen'due south transition into the huge droid-manufacturing plant-like machinery of the Star Wars universe, even as their two characters clashed onscreen over the apprentice's restlessness, lack of humility, and eventual plow to the dark side.
"I call back all that prep period," McGregor says to his costar, "and your passion as an actor, and how deeply you were throwing yourself into it and breaking downward scenes." That extended into the pair's ballsy lightsaber rehearsals. "Information technology was just going and playing with your friend every mean solar day," recalls Christensen. "Certainly, doing all the prep for the lightsaber fights was some of the most fun for me." Alas, not everything was fun.
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
| Credit: Matt Kennedy / Lucasfilm Ltd.
If you lot are SUFFERING as much equally I AM, Please tell me.
It is non hyperbole to proclaim The Phantom Menace equally Hollywood'southward most anticipated film in history upon its release on May 19, 1999. Amazingly, franchise interest had only grown in the 16 years since Return of the Jedi, as older fans salivated for fresh content and a new generation of Jedi-wannabes was indoctrinated into the order thanks to the 1997 Special Edition releases of the original trilogy. And so the picture debuted.
Critics and fans alike pounced on everything from the comic relief of Jar Jar Binks to clunky dialogue like "No need to report that to him until we have something to report." Reaction to the follow-up prequels was not much kinder. And with the net fully booted upward — something Wicket Westward. Warrick and his Ewok bros never had to deal with while out Yub Nubbing on the forest moon of Endor — everybody had an opinion, and not all of them were positive.
For the young stars, there was nowhere to hibernate. "I plant it quite hard," McGregor, at present 50, admits of the reaction to the prequels. "For it to come out and become knocked and so hard was personally quite hard to deal with. And likewise, it was quite early in my career. I didn't actually know how to deal with that. I'd been involved with things that just didn't make much of a ripple, only that's dissimilar from making something that makes a negative ripple."
Simultaneously dealing with sudden fame and criticism, the now-40-twelvemonth-old Christensen also couldn't assist but feel a measure of emotional whiplash over the prequels. "When the films came out and the critics were very critical, of course that was a difficult thing — because you care and then much about this thing that yous've invested so much of yourself into. And so, for sure, that'southward challenging."
After the 2005 release of Revenge of the Sith, there was little (new) hope that nosotros would ever see McGregor and Christensen fire up their lightsabers again. Motivated by the "sense of peace and escape" he felt during visits to Skywalker Ranch, Christensen took a suspension not simply from Star Wars, but from Hollywood in full general — buying a farm in the Canadian countryside. "I really took a liking to that whole surroundings and lifestyle and got a bunch of animals and was looking later sheep and pigs and chickens for a little while," he says. "I go through periods of beingness very focused on my piece of work equally an thespian, and and so merely wanting to do other things that aren't necessarily for public consumption."
When the franchise had a chance to bring Christensen dorsum for Darth Vader's return in however some other prequel picture show (2016's Rogue 1), they instead had former professional boxer Spencer Wilding and stunt actor Daniel Naprous don the black armor. Lucas film president Kathleen Kennedy says Christensen was not considered for the Rogue part at the time because "that was but such a specific action sequence."
"I wasn't a part of any of those conversations about Rogue One," says Christensen. "Simply I loved what they did with information technology. The grapheme predates me, and it's always been a collective effort in a lot of ways. I thought it was brilliant."
Meanwhile, McGregor continued his moving picture career full throttle after hiding Luke on Tatooine (withal seems like an odd choice), merely whenever the player was asked almost a possible render to the galaxy far, far away — pregnant pretty much every interview — he often sounded less than inclined to put the robes back on. "I don't have a burning demand to do it again or, indeed, any sort of fascination for the movies that everyone else seems to have," he told Magic Radio in 2016. "I don't really have that. Maybe because I've been in them. I've seen backside the curtain, you know what I mean? It doesn't accept the same type of wonderment to me."
Ewan McGregor in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
OBI-WAN KENOBI. Obi-Wan. Now that's a proper name I take not heard in A LONG TIME. A long fourth dimension.
They say time heals all wounds. Whether that extends to the wounds you inflict on your former Padawan by chopping off three of his limbs and leaving him to burn to death on a mound of volcanic ash remains open up to debate. Equally the years moved on from the prequels, though, McGregor noticed a sense of balance coming to the Force. And the balance was coming from younglings… at least the ones Darth Vader didn't slaughter in the Jedi temple.
"Now I meet the people who nosotros made those films for, who were the kids of the time," says McGregor. "And our Star Wars films are their Star Wars films. In the way that Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford's films were ours, we're theirs. And that's beautiful that they were important to the kids who we fabricated them for. It'due south just so nice to finally get that wave of positivity about them."
That positivity sparked something in McGregor. For all the difficulty the prequels presented in "walking around with the large conflicting people that aren't actually there and spending a lot of fourth dimension on a blueish set but speaking into the air," at that place were also aspects about making the movies the actor describes as "mind-blowing."
He fondly recalls working with Lucas (who originally hired McGregor'southward uncle, Denis Lawson, to play pilot Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy), the time spent with beau actors Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson, and especially all the lightsaber training with Christensen and stunt coordinator Nick Gillard. ("If you scout those fights, they're f---ing astonishing! We're really cooking.")
In interviews, McGregor started expressing an openness toward returning. Sometimes likewise much openness, he worried. "Information technology started looking similar I was touting for piece of work at Disney's door, because I would say, 'If Lucasfilm wanted to practice it, I'd be so happy to do it.' And it kept appearing everywhere: 'McGregor happy to do Obi-Wan!'"
Eventually, a meeting was arranged to come across how serious the role player actually was most possibly appearing in an Obi-Wan Kenobi film as part of a series of stand up-alone movies outside of the ix-installment Skywalker saga. "They just said, 'Look, we've read that you said you'd exist happy to practise it. We just want to know if you mean it or if you're being polite, because nosotros're thinking that it could be an option. But nosotros want to know if you're in or not.' I said, 'It's absolutely true!'"
With McGregor set up to ignite his trusty saber, Lucas flick actively began development on an Obi-Wan Kenobi film to exist directed by Stephen Daldry. The Jedi'due south return to the argent screen was no longer a matter of if, but rather when.
Ewan McGregor on reuniting with Hayden Christensen for 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
What if this plan FAILS, Master? We could be STUCK Hither a very long time.
And then Solo happened. Released in May 2018, the somewhat awkwardly titled Solo: A Star Wars Story garnered a worldwide box role haul of $393 million — a far cry from the $1.33 billion brought in by 2017's The Final Jedi, and over lx percent less than the first stand-alone Star Wars film, Rogue One, which tallied more than $ane billion.
Whether the shockingly light turnout was due to the tepid reviews, a sudden saturation of Star Wars theatrical offerings, or fans non wanting to see someone other than Harrison Ford playing the scruffy nerf herder, the futures of all franchise films outside of the trilogy-concluding The Rising of Skywalker were immediately sent into limbo. But while those movies may have been put on Hoth-level ice, Kennedy says interest for the Kenobi projection in some form remained. Just if non a moving picture, so what?
That'due south when Disney's so CEO Bob Iger decided to take on Netflix. "When Bob Iger very specifically said, 'Nosotros are going to get-go to shift our priority to making series for Disney+, and we're launching the streaming service,' that really was what shifted our strategy," says Kennedy. "We started to await at the opportunity in the streaming space where we could practise long-form storytelling, and nosotros realized in that location was an opportunity to experiment in that space without the level of scrutiny that happens when you release a feature."
That meant creating The Mandalorian. It meant bringing Boba Fett back from the dead. It meant spinning off from blithe offerings like The Clone Wars and staging another prequel, this fourth dimension for Rogue One intelligence officer Cassian Andor. And information technology meant Ewan McGregor stepping on stage to raucous applause at August 2019'south D23 convention to officially announce his triumphant render. Excitement was further fueled when it was revealed a month afterwards that Deborah Chow, who had worked on The Mandalorian, would direct the Obi-Wan series, becoming the first woman to captain an unabridged live-action Star Wars project from get-go to finish.
However, as the crew came together to work toward a summer 2022 production start date, Kennedy became concerned with the direction of the scripts. "We're looking, ultimately, to make a hopeful, uplifting story," says the studio head. "And it's tricky when you're starting with a character in the land that Obi-Wan would be in coming off of Revenge of the Sith. That'southward a pretty dour flow of time. You lot can't merely wave the magic wand with any writer and arrive at a story that necessarily reflects what y'all desire to feel."
Believing an overhaul was in gild, Kennedy temporarily shut downward production in January 2020, pushed dorsum the filming start date from August 2022 to January 2021, and hired a new writer, Joby Harold, to take over from Hossein Amini (who'd been hired when Kenobi was headed to the big screen). "This was a grapheme that's always been a minor obsession of mine," says Harold. "And when I heard it was a character they were exploring, I very aggressively told them all the things I thought they should do."
The new story crafted by Harold and Chow takes identify x years after Obi-Wan went into hiding on Tatooine — at pretty much the exact midway point between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. "Obi-Wan is lost," says McGregor. "He's a cleaved human later on what happened with the Jedi guild at the stop of Episode Three, but also what happened with Anakin; that he lost him to the dark side. He feels an enormous amount of responsibility for that, and guilt."
The six-episode series focuses on that journey from hurting to at least a modicum of peace. "When we last saw Obi-Wan in the prequels, he'due south very emotional," says Harold. "In that location's a passion to him. And when we get to see him again in A New Hope, he is the Zen master. That was the story that I wanted to sympathize — what had happened to Obi-Wan between the guy that Ewan had brought to life and the guy that Sir Alec Guinness brought to life."
As for how much of the original plot made it into Obi-Wan Kenobi ii.0, Grub notes that "we inherited some of it, but we did really brand some significant changes and add together a few different elements." Meanwhile, an internal fence was raging over whether to dare bring yet another larger-than-life character out of retirement.
Hayden Christensen equally Darth Vader in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
You're going to Demand me on THIS Ane, Master.
To Vader or not to Vader? That was the question. As the creative squad began remapping Obi-Wan'southward story, ambitious negotiations — this time without a lightsaber — commenced as to whether that story should also include the fallen Jedi.
"The debate effectually whether nosotros should practice that or not carried on for quite some time," Kennedy reveals." Everybody within our artistic team has potent opinions, and all of our fans accept strong opinions. So when you realize that you're under that level of scrutiny, certainly a story signal like that is going to exist scrutinized at a very high level. We talked about it constantly."
In this case, the dark side won. And with McGregor back, in that location was only ane choice to fill out the big black suit this time around. Grub went to Vader'due south arbitration chamber (okay, Christensen's farm, but close enough) to make her pitch in person. "Deborah came upwardly and we spent the day chatting," Christensen says. "She told me a little bit most the project and her vision for it, and I just thought that it sounded wonderful. I was very excited to come back."
Not as excited as all those starstruck crew members. "It was then important to take Hayden be a part of this project considering he is such a massive function of that character," says Harold. "Information technology was a priority to all of us that we did information technology with as much care as possible, so as to honour one of the greatest villains and antagonists in the history of entertainment." (As to whether 91-yr-old James Earl Jones will once again be voicing the character, no one volition say.)
"When he beginning came on set for us, it definitely had a very special feeling. The first time I saw him in costume, he was towering over me. He was literally nigh twice my size!" Grub says of Christensen. "It's actually intense to have such an iconic graphic symbol, and then to be directing him and doing new scenes with him…. I do remember poor Ewan on that day being like, 'What am I, chopped liver?'"
"The whole experience was very surreal," Christensen adds of putting the suit back on. But while anybody on set was marveling in his direction, the homo behind the mask was moved by what he saw through his tinted helmet lenses: "The first fourth dimension that I saw Ewan as Obi-Wan once again, that was a very special moment for me, and one that I'll remember for a very, very long time." The boxing had officially been joined.
Moses Ingram as Reva in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Matt Kennedy / Lucasfilm Ltd.
I've been waiting for you, OBI-WAN. Nosotros meet again AT LAST.
While the Obi-Wan and Darth Vader reunion is the big headline, the story that will unfold on Disney+ screens is much more just a decade-later face-off between former master and apprentice. And it will do more than just fill the gaps in their personal history. It will too fill the gaps in the ultimate clash betwixt expert and evil.
"The Empire is in the clout," explains Harold. "All the horrors that come with the Empire are being made manifest throughout the milky way, and then everything that was in the prequels has crumbled. The Jedi order are existence all only wiped out, and those Jedi that accept survived are on the run and they're in hiding."
And they're not just hiding from Vader. The Dark Lord has tasked the Grand Inquisitor and his grouping of Inquisitors to hunt down and eliminate any and all stray Jedi who managed to escape the groovy purge of Order 66. Showtime introduced on screen in the animated series Star Wars Rebels, Inquisitors are fearsome, Force-sensitive beings on a singular mission for the Empire: "They're trying to eradicate the Jedi social club birthday," explains McGregor.
Not only will we see the relentless Inquisitors for the first time in a live-action Star Wars projection, but Obi-Wan will also introduce a new Inquisitor named Reva (played by The Queen'southward Gambit's Moses Ingram), who Harold promises will "contribute to the legacy of Star Wars villains in a actually interesting way."
Harold and Chow employ the words ruthless and ambitious to describetheir new Jedi-hunter, but the adult female playing her prefers another description. "Reva is a boss," Ingram says emphatically, speaking to EW just a few days afterwards finishing a series of physically demanding reshoots. "I mean, really like a full-on athlete. She is on a mission and will conquer that at all costs when given the opportunity. She is pretty badass." (And with a badass outfit: "Putting on a cape was a dream I didn't know I had. I felt like I was 10 again! It was super dope.")
The director is just every bit pumped for viewers to be introduced to the new antagonist. "It's really exciting for me to bring a female villain, and to have a dark-side woman in a very meaning role." Hopefully Reva's significance will extend beyond the screen. Adds Ingram: "We had a lot of conversations about hair and what the correct hair might be. Deborah was really great virtually moving from the initial vision to what we arrived at for Reva's hair. I wanted kids to accept their own hair at Halloween. And that's huge If you look at all the Blackness kids with kinky hair. When they want to be Elsa, they got to put on a blond wig. [Now] there are so many kids that'll be able to wear their hair at Halloween. That'due south going to be really exciting."
When asked near other announced newcomers like O'Shea Jackson Jr., Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, and Maya Erskine, the creative team substantially resorts to Jedi heed tricks (These aren't the actors y'all're looking for). Nor practise they succumb to Imperial interrogationtactics when questioned equally to whether Obi-Wan Kenobi volition continue the recent Disney+ practise of crossing over characters from i show to another. Afterwards all, Anakin's onetime Jedi pupil Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian is out at that place somewhere in this time frame, as is a younger Boba Fett.
While the powers that exist will not completely rule out any of that, they are also quick to make a distinction between their world and the one seen on the other live-action series so far. "All of that falls inside the Mandalorian timeline," Kennedy says of potential crossover characters, while Grub adds that "the strongest connective tissue for us is to the prequels, because that's where our characters are coming from and that'southward where their stories started. So, really, the prequels are the most connected to our series."
Which explains the return of more familiar faces in the grade of Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse as Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. "I was so excited to bring them back," says the managing director. "Part of what made the series feel very special is that we were bringing back not only Ewan and Hayden, simply people similar Joel and Bonnie from 20 years ago and gettingt o reunite as the same characters."
Joel Edgerton and Moses Ingram in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
But if Obi-Wan, Owen, and Beru are all function of the new series, what nearly that pesky womp-rat-shooting, Tosche Station-obsessed tyke they are all helping to enhance? Will Luke Skywalker himself be making an appearance? While no 1 will say for sure, Harold coyly points to Kenobi's stated mission of protecting the boy, noting, "That's function of what [Obi-Wan's] been charged to do. And he is waking up every morning time and doing his job. That's what he's there for." (Also, the recently released trailer either shows Luke pretty manifestly, or that is a mischievous misdirect of Palpatinian proportions.)
Between The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and at present Obi-Wan Kenobi, information technology seems everyone in the Star Wars live-action Disney+ universe has been hanging out on Tatooine lately. And while Chow says "there's obviously a significant chunk on Tatooine because of the nature of where the starting place is for the story," she also promises that "we definitely get to new worlds. Part of what makes Star Wars is getting to visit different places
1 of those places is a new planet Kenobi volition visit named Daiyu, "which sort of has a Hong Kong feel to it," says Harold. "It's got a graffiti-ridden nightlife, and is kind of edgy. Information technology's just got a dissimilar lane and a unlike feeling."
Ah, only how long will nosotros get to run into Obi-Wan Kenobi explore those different lanes and feelings? The show has been billed as one 6-episode season — only with plenty of room to play with before the events of A New Hope, could at that place exist more? "Information technology was definitely conceived every bit a limited serial, and it is i big story with a beginning, middle, and end," says Chow. "The approach has always been that it is one full story."
Only leave it to the studio head to go on any and all options on the tabular array. "It's certainly something nosotros talk about," Kennedy says of a possible extension, "mainly because everybody came together and had such an incredible time. Ewan had an incredible time. Hayden had an incredible fourth dimension. Then certainly from that point of view, everybody involved would love to see this not finish. But nosotros have to really spend our fourth dimension request the question: Why would we practise information technology? If nosotros were to determine to do anything more with the Obi-Wan graphic symbol, nosotros'd accept to really answer the question why?
Moses Ingram in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
| Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Next time attempt not to LOSE it. This WEAPON is your LIFE
Moses Ingram clearly thinks the globe of Ewan McGregor. The actress gleefully remembers all the finer points of fight preparation with the star, whom she describes every bit "a graceful little butterfly." She recalls the encouragement he showed her as she fumbled through predictable rookie mistakes. And she tin can't terminate gushing well-nigh how he fabricated "the sweetest video" for her Ewan-obsessed all-time friend. But none of that will stop the Inquisitor from showing her true dark-side allegiance and ratting out her Jedi costar. The incident in question took place on the oval 75-pes-broad, 23-pes-high virtual LED set up known as the Volume. "I forget what scene we were shooting," says Ingram, "but Ewan was doing something, and he dropped his lightsaber in the crack between the Volume and where the stage ends. And he was then embarrassed. He was like, 'Please don't e'er tell anyone I dropped my lightsaber!'"
Considering the notoriously hardtime McGregor used to give Christensen for losing his lightsaber (a dynamic that carried over on screen betwixt Obi Wan and Anakin), this scandalous revelation elicits a huge grin from Christensen. "This is news to me!" he laughs.
"You mustn't listen to it," McGregor shoots back. "It'due south all hearsay and rumor. She's but trying to 1-up Obi-Wan."
"All of those lectures, though, Ewan!"
"Yes, I don't remember that. I thinks he's making that upward," insists McGregor before pausing. "Okay, I might have inadvertently permit it slip. Maybe."
Christensen's elation now knows no bounds. "Information technology's shocking news. I don't believe it considering I know how much regard Ewan has for his lightsaber, so it's hard to fully believe."
Past this signal, McGregor knows that regardless of what has and volition happen on screen, this is one duel of the fates he cannot win. "I exercise call up I said, 'Please don't tell Hayden, because I used to give him such southward--- every time he dropped his lightsaber.' All I tin can say is, it's been a while for Obi-Wan. He'due south not the man that we once remember. And if, indeed, information technology might have slipped out of his hand and rolled across the stage and into a ditch, it'due south only considering he's non quite where he used to be. But information technology's coming back."
Source: https://ew.com/tv/obi-wan-kenobi-ewan-mcgregor-hayden-christensen-cover-story/
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