Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Director Compares Darth Vader Relationship to a “Love Story”

Disney+ and Lucasfilm’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series is set to reunite Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen after almost twenty years. The two actors haven’t reprised their iconic Star Wars roles since 2005’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and excitement for the series is currently at an all-time high. The series is set to focus on the period in time after Revenge of the Sith where McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi is watching over a young Luke Skywalker on Tatooine and will even feature an Obi-Wan and Darth Vader reunion. Obi-Wan Kenobi director Deborah Chow recently compared the two’s relationship to a love story.

“For me, across the prequels, through the original trilogy, there’s a love-story dynamic with these two that goes through the whole thing,” Chow revealed to Vanity Fair. “I felt like it was quite hard to not[include] the person who left Kenobi in such anguish in the series… What’s special about that relationship is that they loved each other.”

Although, McGregor and Christensen have previously worked together on the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Christensen only played the Anakin Skywalker side of Darth Vader. MacGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi never came face to face with Darth Vader. Now, it seems that that changed on the set of the Disney+ series, and the experience left an impression on the actor. 

“I’ve never met Darth Vader,” McGregor told Total Film, 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.” 

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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