Ewan McGregor Shares Embarrassing Story Of When He Met George Lucas

For just a moment, think back to a time when you were really embarrassed. Do you recall the sickly feeling in your chest or the overwhelming need to laugh-slash-cry? Does the burning awkwardness sear in your frontal lobe when you look back on the moment? We’ve all got those moments, even celebrities. And, in a recent interview, Ewan McGregor talked about one of his more embarrassing moments when he met George Lucas for the first time.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, McGregor promoted his directorial debut American Pastoral before the topic of Star Wars reared its massive head. The actor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes I-III, revealed his first meeting with George Lucas was an uncomfortable one.

The actor recalled he met Lucas after visiting the Star Wars set just north of London. “I remember going there meeting George and being allowed to read the script. So I had to read it in the producer’s office like literally being almost locked in with the script, so that it doesn’t get leaked and then being shown around the sets with George and walking around and I remember we looked,” he said.

“Here was a great big submarine thing that I end up in with Liam and Jar Jar Binks. And then I remember looking at these props, this art department guys sort of carving this huge polystyrene thing into the submarine and there was a cockpit. And I looked at it and I went will be go under? He looked at me and went, ‘What?’ I said will we go underwater with it. And he looked at me like I was insane.”

McGregor continued and said that Lucas then told him, “None of that it’s real, you know.” Properly stunned, the actor answered by saying, “Oh, yeah.”

Talk about an interesting job interview, right?

The actor also took time to talk about taking on such an iconic character after Alec Guinness first played Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars trilogy.

“As an acting challenge, it was one. It was quite a tall order to do justice to Alec Guinness to make the role mine but to make it feel like Alec, I wanted to do him justice really,” McGregor explained. “And that was a responsibility, I felt. And what was interesting, it made me look at all his early work because I wanted to see, I was playing Alec Guinness as a young man. So I spent quite a lot of time watching his early films. And oh, my God, there are some amazing pieces of work there.”

While feelings about Star Wars: Episodes I-III are often mixed, most fans agree that McGregor’s work on the film was nothing short of stellar. Over the years, those same fans have asked time and again whether McGregor would like to reprise his role. While the actor has said he feels “no burning need to return” to the role, McGregor did recently admit there was plenty of material to fuel spin-off films about Obi-Wan.

“I’ve always thought there was a story to tell between my last one and Alec Guinness’ first one. It would be fun to film that story now I’m older,” McEwan explained, “I’d be the right age. I’m forty-five, Alec Guinness was what, sixty? I could do two of them (laughs)!”