Ewan McGregor Was Freaked Out by “Dead” Yoda Puppet While Filming Star Wars Prequels

Ewan McGregor is currently filming the Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney+, which will mark the actor’s first time playing the role since Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith hit theatres in 2005. McGregor recently took part in an “Actors on Actors” interview with The Mandalorian‘s Pedro Pascal through Variety. McGregor asked Pascal about working with the Baby Yoda puppet, and from there, McGregor spoke about his own experiences with Yoda during the Star Wars prequels.

“The first film I did, I was lucky to do my scenes with the Yoda puppet. And it was extraordinary because I acted with him. I couldn’t believe I was acting with Yoda. There’s so many people operating him, and the stage is lifted up so they’re underneath the floor and we were literally walking next to each other — and he’s alive. Then every time George [Lucas] called cut, Yoda would die, because everyone just stops. It was sort of disturbing every time the end of the scene would come along,” McGregor shared.

“Then they replaced him for our second film and our third film with the digital version of him, and it’s not nearly as endearing. Also, we know Yoda as a puppet. We know him from the original movies as a puppet. So when it was suddenly computer-generated, it didn’t feel like Yoda to me anymore. It was interesting that it went back to an actual puppet with your series,” McGregor added.

Pascal replied, “It worked on so many levels and the way that we had to end the second season with this sort of tearful goodbye. To not have had the puppet for that, and also the knowledge of its reception from the world and how everyone felt about its creation, its relationship to the history of “Star Wars” — it was one of the more strange acting experiences that I’ve ever had. There were so many different things factoring into it that it wasn’t necessarily understanding the story so well in terms of what we were telling within The Mandalorian, but the context of all of it. If that makes any sense.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s cast also includes the return of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, Joel Edgerton as Owen Lars, and Bonnie Piesse as Beru Lars. Star Wars newcomers include Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Maya Erskine, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie. Deborah Chow, who directed two episodes of Star Wars: The Mandalorian, is set to direct the entire series, which will take place ten years after Star Wars Revenge of the Sith and nine years before the original Star Wars.

Stay tuned for more updates about Obi-Wan Kenobi!