Obi-Wan Kenobi Director Explains Why Hayden Christensen’s Return as Darth Vader Was Important

Obi-Wan Kenobi is debuting on Disney+ this Friday, and it will mark the first time in 17 years that Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen have played Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. The new series takes place ten years after Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and nine years before the original Star Wars, and Christensen has teased that the new show will see Vader “trying to bury Anakin as deep down inside as possible.” The series is being helmed by Deborah Chow, who also directed two episodes of Star Wars: The Mandalorian. During a recent chat with Nerdist, Chow explained why Christensen’s return was so important.

“Obviously, we’re so connected to the prequels,” Chow said of Obi-Wan Kenobi. “We’re bringing back Ewan and looking back at the character, Anakin plays such a big role in Obi-Wan’s life. So much of the weight that we’re coming in with the series is coming out of what happened in Revenge of the Sith. It felt very natural to have Hayden be part of this. I think for us, so much of what we’re exploring is the emotional relationship between the two of them. To have that emotion, it obviously connects very strongly to Hayden.”

She added of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship, “It’s interesting because his last words at the end of Revenge of the Sith are, ‘You’re my brother and I love you.’ There was this obviously incredibly strong brotherly love and this bond between them that had been established in the prequels. At that moment, [Obi-Wan] thinks he’s leaving [Anakin] for dead, and then we’re picking up coming out of that relationship. So, it’s an intense emotional relationship that happened between the two of them. And part of what we’re exploring is that weight coming in and that loss and feeling that he had put him down. So that’s something we really wanted to explore through the character of Kenobi.” 

Earlier this year, McGregor spoke to Forbes and teased flashback scenes between Obi-Wan and Anakin.

“I think it’s no secret that Hayden Christensen comes back and we got to play scenes together again as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and it was just fantastic to work with him again,” McGregor shared. “I’m not going to give away anything else about the storyline, only I think it’s really going to satisfy Star Wars fans. I always felt there was a story between Episode III where I finished playing Obi-Wan in the movies and Episode IV where Alec Guinness is Obi-Wan Kenobi. The [Obi-Wan Kenobi series] writers and [director Deborah Chow] and I and everyone, I think we crafted or they crafted a very fine storyline. I think people are going to like it.”

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts on Disney+ on May 27th.