Obi-Wan Kenobi's story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where the hero faced his greatest defeat - the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.
Earlier this week, Disney+ held the global press conference for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and we were on hand for the event. Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Moses Ingram (Reva), and director Deborah Chow were there to field questions, and we were fortunate enough to pick the mind of "Ben" himself.
It's been a long time since McGregor last played Obi-Wan, so we wondered how quickly his lightsaber training came back to him and in what way his preparation differed from the Star Wars prequels.
"We did a lot of lightsaber drills with Jojo and his team. It's something you have to work on. It's not like there right away. There were two things I had to work on. That and his voice. We did a casting session, Deborah and I, for two roles in the series. We did screentests with different actors for those roles and that was the first thing I did as Obi-Wan again for the first time since 2003. We borrowed a bit of The Mandalorian's stage on a Sunday when they were off and some of their crew."
"I walked into the dressing room and there was a sort of Obi-Wan-ish costume hanging up that The Mandalorian's wardrobe department had put together. Putting that on was really crazy after all that time, but walking out onto the set was even crazier. There are so many Star Wars fans in this crew which was a new experience for me. There was a buzz about Obi-Wan walking back on stage. When we came to do the actual scenes with these actors, I was terrible. I was doing this vague English accent and it wasn't really Obi-Wan's voice at all. I was like, 'Oh dear [Laughs], that's not very good.'"
"Luckily, we had months before we started shooting, so I went back and did some homework with Alec Guinness and what I'd done before in the original films. Those were the two things. Playing him felt like he'd always been there ready to come out any minute, but his voice needed a bit of work."
We can only imagine what a special day on set that was, and hope that it was filmed for a future Disney Gallery special about the making of the series. It's interesting that McGregor struggled to find Obi-Wan's voice again, but easy to forget just how distinct this character sounds (and how long it's been since the actor last played him). However, based on what we've seen thus far, he nailed it.
The next week promises to be an exciting time for Star Wars fans, so you'll want to keep checking back here for more on Obi-Wan Kenobi (including our review of those first two episodes) very soon.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres on Disney+ on May 27.