Ewan McGregor was recently on with Jimmy Kimmel and, of course, they talked about Star Wars.
For many years, McGregor has been asked about Star Wars in most interviews he’s done, it seems, but now there’s actually finally something to talk about: he is reprising the iconic role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a Disney+ series that will begin filming next year!
This news has been met by a very positive reception by Star Wars fans, and McGregor confirmed to Kimmel that this is something that has actually been in the works for quite a while, as he was forced to lie about it in interviews when asked if he’d return to playing the character.
“It got difficult. I was brought up to tell the truth, and I was in a situation where I wasn’t really allowed to, because the studios and the big franchises they want to keep everything, and rightly so, they want to keep everything very secret and as closed as it can be. But at the same time there’s this overwhelming amount of speculation online and on social media and what have you, and wherever I went for the last [mumble] years, people would ask me, ‘so, would you do it again?’ Once they started doing spinoffs of course everyone was like, ‘Are you gonna do an Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff?’ And I was talking to Lucasfilm and Disney about that, but of course I couldn’t say that I was. So I’d have to go, ‘well, you know, if they wanted to do one I’d be quite interested in doing it.’ And it started to look a bit like I was just trying to get the part. Which [for] a man of my standing was quite humiliating.”
He joked that repeating this over and over when asked about it almost made it look like he was begging for work, but that wasn’t the case at all – in fact, he was already talking with Lucasfilm about reprising the role, but he just couldn’t say anything yet.
But consider this: it sounds like he has been talking with Lucasfilm and Disney about doing an Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff since the idea of spinoffs was announced, which has been years. If that’s actually the timeline, then that would mean that this has been something in the works for at least six years! So regardless of when the conversations with Lucasfilm really started getting serious, it’s pretty evident that this is not a new idea.
And in an interview with ComicBook.com, McGregor confirmed that this project wasn’t always going to be a series but actually was at one point supposed to be a single standalone film. But, as he points out, he’s excited for the opportunity to tell the story over several hours – more than they would have in a single movie. So honestly, we’ll be getting far more Kenobi than we would have in a film, which is pretty cool.
All of this lends plenty of credence to the long rumored nature of this project. We’ve heard rumors about it from various outlets and reports over the years, and we heard reports more recently that the project was close to being announced until Solo‘s box office disappointment changed the strategy a bit. But with Disney+ becoming a massive focus, surely this became an obvious fit for the platform.
So I simply think it’s interesting to hear confirmation about what was long suspected and reported, and I’m really glad that Ewan McGregor is returning as Kenobi in this series. I’m really excited for it, and it seems that he has already begun getting back into character by speaking about something only from a certain point of view.
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