In an expansive conversation with British GQ, Ewan McGregor delves into changes in life and career and his relationship with Star Wars which started in a cinema to see his uncle Denis Lawson as Wedge Antilles and led to a starring and producing role on Obi-Wan Kenobi, which ended today, although it’s clear McGregor is up for making more.
The idea of returning to Star Wars has hung over McGregor for more than a decade. “Years ago, there was a time everybody would end every interview with, ‘Are you going to do porno?’” McGregor says. My jaw drops. He laughs: “Irvine Welsh wrote a sequel to Trainspotting, which was called Porno. And everyone asked if I was going to do that, and would immediately follow up, ‘And what about Obi-Wan Kenobi, would you play him again?’ I did a bit of social media then – I don’t anymore – but I would see it constantly, this question, are you going to do it again? Are you going to do it again?”
“With Ewan and Obi-Wan, he and the character just feel seamless,” Chow says. She saw the new series as a bridge from the Zen master originated by Sir Alec Guinness to the more emotional character crafted by McGregor. “Obviously [Ewan] was a producer on Kenobi, he’s more than just an actor. But he’s lived with this character. Not only did he play it in the prequels, but he’s asked to live with the public persona of being Obi-Wan.”
If there’s a burden in that, McGregor doesn’t appear to feel it. He is delighted with Kenobi and ready to go again. “I really hope we do another,” he says. “If I could do one of these every now and again – I’d just be happy about it.” His prequels co-star Hayden Christensen returns in the series as Darth Vader, but this time in full regalia. In the movies they made, the character didn’t yet merit a helmet – and the first time McGregor did a scene with Vader in full costume, “I got a jolt of fear that made me six years old again,” he says. “I’ve never experienced that before. I just about crapped my pants.”
As well as satisfaction with Kenobi, Ewan is thrilled that the much-maligned prequel trilogy which received a critical backlash on release is now embraced by a fandom that has grown into adults and parents over the intervening 20 years.
It’s been 17 years since McGregor and George Lucas made the prequels – 1999’s The Phantom Menace, 2002’s Attack of the Clones, 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. If what you remember about them are the bad reviews, worse dialogue, and endless Jar Jar Binks jokes, all I can say is: why, hello there. Over time and across the internet the prequels have been reassessed and – at least among Star Wars fans – become beloved, canon, the source of fan art, animated series, and endless memes. The volte-face even changed how McGregor thinks about the films. “The [prequels] weren’t well received,” he says. “What you hear is usually critic-driven, and everyone was very negative. As it transpires, we were creating the relationship I had with Star Wars when I was a kid with this [younger] generation.”
