Star Wars: Joel Edgerton Address His Return for Obi-Wan Kenobi

Joel Edgerton is one of a number of big names coming back to Tattooine for Disney+‘s upcoming series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will tell the story of the legendary Jedi in the years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Starring Ewan McGregor in the title role, Obi-Wan Kenobi will bring back a number of actors from the Star Wars prequels, and give fans a little bit of live-action closure on the events that took place in the dark years between the rise of Vader and the first adventures of Luke Skywalker and his merry band of misfits.

Edgerton, who played Luke’s uncle Owen Lars, unsurprisingly faced some Star Wars questions while out in support of the new Barry Jenkins limited series The Underground Railroad. He teased just a little bit about what it’s like getting back to the character.

“Well, if they give me two seconds, I’m going to turn it into four,” Edgerton teased when asked whether Owen might get a big, dramatic reveal a la Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Outside of that, though, Edgerton knows enough to keep his mouth shut when he’s working on a top-secret project.

The actor has said for years that he would happily return to the role if the studio wanted him to, and the script was good, and that is exactly what happened — after years of waiting. After joking a little bit about having manifested it through sheer force of will, the actor shared a story about Phil Brown, the actor who first played the role, at a Star Wars convention in Indianapolis in 2002.

“Soon after that, he passed away,” Edgerton said. “And his wife told me a funny story, actually. She said, ‘We were at one of these events and Phil had a little nap behind his table where he’d been signing autographs. He had a nap and he woke up to two ambulance guys thinking that there was something wrong with him, trying to revive him.’ And his wife’s like, ‘No! he’s just having a nap!’”

Directed by Deborah Chow, the series will also feature appearances by Hayden Christensen, Rupert Friend, Simone Kessell, Kumail Nanjiani, and Maya Erskine. Obi-Wan will follow in the footsteps of The Mandalorian and stream exclusively on Disney+. It has yet to set a release date, but things are moving quickly after the long, long wait Star Wars fans had to endure to get these versions of the characters back on screen.