Ewan McGregor will return to a Galaxy Far, Far Away in Disney+'s Obi-Wan Kenobi series, which will mark his first time playing the Jedi Master since 2005's Revenge of the Sith. In a lengthy interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor opened up about his experience shooting the Star Wars prequels, and admitted to struggling with George Lucas' reliance on visual effects.
As the trilogy continued, McGregor says the filmmaker started utilising more and more VFX "because George loves technology and loves pushing into that realm. He wanted more and more control over what we see in the background." By the time the final movie rolled around, the endless bluescreens had become too much for the actor.
"After three or four months of that, it just gets really tedious, especially when the scenes are...I don't want to be rude, but it's not Shakespeare," he added. "There's not something to dig into in the dialogue that can satisfy you when there's no environment there. It was quite hard to do."
Obi-Wan Kenobi will also make use of clever visual effects, but in a very different way thanks to the StageCraft technology first used by Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian.
"They project [the virtual backgrounds] onto this massive LED screen," McGregor explains. "So if you're in a desert, you're standing in the middle of a desert. If you're in the snow, you're surrounded by snow. And if you're in a cockpit of a starfighter, you're in space. It's going to feel so much more real."
The actor couldn't share much about the show, but did say that he's "done some screen tests with Deborah [Chow] and other people, and I can see that she is a really, really good director." Were any of those with a young Luke Skywalker, perhaps? "That's very possible," McGregor teased. "I don't know."
Shooting hasn't begun on Obi-Wan Kenobi just yet, but cameras are expected to start rolling next month.