Obi-Wan Kenobi star Ewan McGregor Opens Up About Seeing Hayden Christensen's Darth Vader for the First Time
Obi-Wan Kenobi will mark the first time that Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen will reprise their iconic Star Wars roles since Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The two have faced off in the Duel of Fates, but McGregor's Obi-Wan has only battled Anakin Skywalker and not Darth Vader. Christensen doesn't become Darth Vader until the end of the film, and it's after Obi-Wan defeats him by cutting off his limbs and leaving him to burn in lava. The Obi-Wan Kenobi series will see McGregor take on Darth Vader and in a new interview with Variety it seems that it was pretty eventful to say the least.
"Yeah, I've never worked with Darth Vader before because he didn't exist," McGregor reveals. "At the very end of Episode III we see him sort of being born, I suppose, but I hadn't worked with him and I hadn't worked with Storm Troopers. We worked with Clone Troopers, but mainly they weren't there. They were put in afterwards. So it was kind of cool. I had all these flashbacks to being young… seeing Darth Vader coming at you is pretty terrifying. I don't care who you are! Even if you know it's Hayden [Christensen] in there. You know it's still quite scary seeing that face come at you."
McGregor previously shared the same sentiments on meeting with Darth Vader face-to-face. The actor reveals how much of an impression it left on him and it honestly scared him. In a recent interview with Total Film, the Obi-Wan Kenobi star shared a more in depth take on his first time coming face to face with the Sith Lord.
"I've never met Darth Vader," McGregor told the magazine, which features the star as Kenobi on its latest cover. "I had rehearsed the scene with Vader, but not with the helmet on or anything like that. When we came to do the scene, when they shouted 'action', he had to come from behind me. I turned around, and fucking Darth Vader was coming at me. It was like I was six again. I'd never acted into Vader's helmet. I'd never looked him in the eye."
"It scared the shit out of me," the Obi-Wan Kenobi actor added. "I'm not joking. It gave me a proper jolt of absolute fear. I was like, 'Oh my God, that's not acting. That's real. I'm really, truly frightened right now.' And the same thing would happen with the Stormtroopers. I'd worked with Clone troopers before, but so many of them were CGI. I never worked with Stormtroopers, and, again, I was like seven years old again. Because when you're actually faced with a Stormtrooper, with a blaster, it's like: 'Fucking hell.' It's like actual childhood memories of being scared. That's how deeply it's in us. I've acted for 30 years, and I've never been genuinely frightened when I'm acting frightened... But I had moments on this that were genuinely quite scary. It's so funny."
Lucasfilm and the streaming service describe the series as follows: "During the reign of the Galactic Empire, former Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi embarks on a crucial mission. Kenobi must confront allies turned enemies and face the wrath of the Empire." Obi-Wan Kenobi will premiere May 27th, 2022 on Disney+. The series stars Ewan McGregor, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Sung Kang, Moses Ingram, Indira Varama, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Rupert Friend, Simone Kessell and Benny Sadfie.
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