This story about “Obi-Wan Kenobi” first appeared in the Limited series/movies issue from TheWrap Emmy magazine.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi” seems like the kind of easy, no-nonsense dunk that’s conceived quickly and executed even faster. We’re talking about a Disney+ and Lucasfilm limited series that followed the titular Jedi (played, once again, by Ewan McGregor) in the lonely time between the prequels and 1977’s “Star Wars: A New Hope.” But it wasn’t quite as fast. and easy. In fact, for years, McGregor had no idea if he would ever play the wise mentor again. “There was constant noise on social media about another Obi-Wan project, and I was constantly asked in every interview I did,” he said. “Eventually he would answer truthfully and say, ‘Yes, I would be totally down to play Obi-Wan Kenobi again.'”
About five or six years ago, Lucasfilm finally reached out to McGregor and asked if his comments about wanting to play the character again were true. “That’s where this started. And at that point, the conversation was just about the story: taking Obi-Wan to a very broken place, starting with a man who lost his faith and gave up on life. And I thought it would be a fascinating place to start the story.”
The project was first envisioned as a feature film directed by Stephen Daldry (“The Hours”). “At the time, the story was very much a story about Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker,” McGregor said. It was then developed as a limited series that eventually found the right lead. “Deborah took it and ran with it and turned it into what she became, which was amazing,” McGregor said.
Deborah, of course, is Deborah Chow, who directed some of the most memorable episodes of the first season of “The Mandalorian” and directed the entirety of “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” “I had a really good time, honestly,” Chow said. “I feel like I didn’t have much of a step off (from ‘The Mandalorian’). it was pretty close. But it was exciting to take on a different kind of project. Going into something that was more character-focused and a limited series that had a beginning and an end was pretty amazing.”
For McGregor, returning to the world of “Star Wars” forced him to reevaluate his entire relationship with the property. (“Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” came out when he was just 28.) “There’s been a profound change in my relationship with ‘Star Wars’ and with the ‘Star Wars’ fans and just my feelings about it.” he said. “The prequels were pretty hard to make and pretty hard to deal with after they came out.”
At the time, it was the biggest project McGregor had ever done. Back then, he was known for edgy independent films like Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting.” After he finished making the prequels, he thought he would “never look back.”
Enter “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“It’s brought me back to the world of ‘Star Wars’ in a really nice way,” he said. “I am very proud of that now. And it made me proud of that work in a way that I probably wasn’t before.”
Chow relished the opportunity to tackle a different version of Obi-Wan Kenobi… and Darth Vader, with Hayden Christensen returning under the mask. “Obviously we had the challenge of trying to tell a story that is in the middle of two trilogies and with characters that everyone knows before and after,” Chow said. “But it was really interesting trying to make these characters at a different time in their lives.”
An uglier brand of villainy was on display when racist trolls launched a coordinated campaign against Reva Sevander/The Third Sister, a Jedi hunter character played by Moses Ingram. The attacks were so vile that McGregor took to social media to declare his support for Ingram and tell fans to stop.
“It is very shocking when you realize that racism like that exists. And something has to be said about it,” McGregor said. “That has tainted Moses’ experience of playing that role. And that is forever. That’s not something you just let go of. So I feel really sad about that, and really proud of her. He did an amazing job on quite a complicated character. That should have been talked about. That is what should have been celebrated.”
The racist backlash was, Chow said, “pretty harsh, especially since the show hadn’t come out yet. It wasn’t even based on their performance or merit. I was just reacting to a trailer. It was demoralizing. And we were very proud of her. We were together for months working together, and then all of a sudden to have something like that, it was pretty jarring.”
Although “Obi-Wan Kenobi” is a limited series, it concludes on a rather tantalizing note. And McGregor is happy to put the cape back on. “I’m just waiting for the call, really. I loved everything about it,” he said. “I woke up every morning excited to go to work. I worked with great actors, I worked on these phenomenal sets and I worked with great scripts for a great director and I had a good camel. I could go on and on.”
While Chow wasn’t as overtly eager to return, she did admit that there might still be more stories to tell. “Who knows?” she said. “You can never say never.” The Force could still be with them.
Read more of the limited series/film edition here.
