Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return

One B. Take one.

This is probably one of your first roles

in a strictly fantasy-type film.

Do you feel that it has presented any particular challenges to you?

Challenge from top to bottom.

Now, I've never done anything remotely to do with science fiction before.

But then, as I see it, this has nothing to do with past, present, or future.

Star Wars could be in any of those areas.

George Lucas suggested to me something of a samurai warrior,

something of a wise man, a kind of monk-like character.

You've got to be rooting for someone

and I think you certainly are in this picture.

Hello there.

Come here, my little friend. Don't be afraid.

I remember clearly the first time

I saw Star Wars. I was five or six.

I came from this very small town in Scotland and, me and my brother,

we went to the big city to watch it.

We didn't really know what it was, or...

That it was "Star Wars", you know.

And then I watched it a billion times.

When we got a video player, we watched it over and over and over.

We knew every single line of it.

We watched it till it was just colors on the screen.

It was so worn out, you know.

And Alec Guinness, of course, I didn't know his work.

I was only a kid. But I knew him as Obi-Wan Kenobi,

and he's this iconic, legendary character.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

By the time I was nine, I'd decided I wanted to be an actor.

And I just... I wondered at his career.

Then when I got cast as Obi-Wan Kenobi,

I tried to watch as many films as I could of him as a young man.

To try and imagine him as a younger person.

This series is special

because it's a character that I loved playing back in the day

and I get the chance to do it again.

Good morning, everyone!

Now, welcome to our first official day.

This is also our first official day with Ewan,

who not only is Obi-Wan Kenobi but is also a producer and a partner on the show.

Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been a long time...

-It's been a long time coming to this. (LAUGHING) Yeah, I know.

Many years, we've been talking about doing this

and it's exciting and unbelievable almost that here we are.

Rehearsal up!

Rehearsal's up!

Good luck. Here we go.

This series is the story of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the intervening years

between the prequels and the original trilogies.

We're starting in a moment where the Jedi are gone,

they're being hunted, the Empire is in control.

Everything's a very dark period.

So, in many ways, we're trying to answer the question of,

"How did he go from "Revenge of the Sith".

"with all the pain and the tragedy at the ending to,

"sort of, the calm and the peace of "A New Hope"?"

Takin' on the series, for me,

it was hugely an honor to be able to enter into this mythology

and to inherit this galaxy with such rich, amazing characters.

But at the same time, I also need to tell a story.

And I can't copy what George did, I'm not George,

so I have to tell my own story with these characters.

I think the trick has been to find the balance between those two things.

Meet Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Ewan was very involved all through the whole development,

and he was such a lovely creative partner.

He's more than just an actor.

He, to me, is Obi-Wan.

And Ewan was kind of the exact right age to play this character again.

When I first heard that they were doing Episode I to III

and they needed an Obi-Wan Kenobi,

I definitely didn't think it was for me.

I thought, "This isn't who I am," just because of the scale of it.

I felt like I was this indie actor.

There was three of us for the part.

And I went in and I did a screen test.

You can't help but change when it goes on.

-Everyone can just be the most... -Of course. Especially actors,

-'cause that's what we do. -Yeah, yeah.

I thought, "No. I'm not gonna be doing something that big."

But the truth was, I really wanted it.

I wanted it because

of how I'd felt about the original three "Star Wars" films.

Shortly thereafter, I heard that they'd offered it to me,

and I was so beyond excited.

-(LAUGHS) How are you? -Hi. How are you doing?

You all right?

The crux of the story is you object to Qui-Gon bringing this kid along.

-Mmm-hmm. -So, his last dying wish to you

is that you carry on with the kid

and you're sort of saying, "Okay, I'll do it."

But you're really not up for it. But you do it anyway.

You've taken on this obligation that you don't really want

and you're not really capable of,

but you promised your dying master that you would do it, so, that's where it ends.

I had a walk around the studio with George.

We went into a stage where they were making the submarine

that Liam and Ahmed Best and I end up in.

And I was so excited, I looked up at it, and then I went,

"George, will we go underwater in it?"

And he just looked at me and he went, "What?"

And I said, "Will we submerge in it?"

I was so excited that we might.

And he said, "It's none of it real, you know."

And a little part of me went... Huh.

Like, that feeling of when you get into the world of it,

like, of course you're not flying through space, you know.

But somewhere in my head,

I thought maybe I would get the chance to do something like that.

And then later on, we went into the props-making department

and the props master brought this wooden box out.

And opened it up.

And there was lightsabers in there.

And I got to choose my one, you know.

And that was the real moment where I realized what was going on,

that this was an important moment. To pick Obi-Wan's lightsaber.

I've been waiting for this for weeks.

Every morning I'd say, "I wonder if it's today I'll get to choose."

I don't think I'd imagined the scale of it.

And it was unlike anything I'd ever done.

It's so interesting now, 20 years later,

the love that there is for those films

from the generation who they were made for,

the children then.

The films that we made are their "Star Wars", you know.

And that's lovely.

It's nice that feeling coincides with making the series.

This is our prop master.

Good to see you! Good to see you!

This is the "A New Hope" Alec Guinness' saber.

And this is what you had in Episode III.

And this is kind of our halfway point in a way...

I see. -...that's leaning hard into this,

as far as form factor, like it's got the switchboard and not the bubbles.

This was mine in III? -Yeah.

We shot Episode III in 2003.

And we started shooting this one in 2020

so that's a long time not to play somebody, I feel like.

It was such a long time ago. I've just forgotten all of it.

And yet, as soon as I put his clothes on and came on set here,

it didn't take me very long to feel comfortable again.

Here we go, darlin'.

I haven't tried the smoke machine before.

Okay.

Good?

This is sort of a color sample of the edible meat.

Okay.

And so, you're gonna cut a piece of one of these bricks for your eopie.

Like taking a corner. And maybe doing like that,

on the way down.

Yeah, that would fit in my pouch, yeah.

I started speaking with people at Disney a long time ago.

I always thought it would be interesting to take a character that

we know and love as being one way and show him in defeat.

I just said, I just feel like it's an interesting story

about a man who's broken and lost his faith.

And how does it come back? How does he get it back?

...camera A marker.

And, action!

The first thing we did with Ewan was the Sandwhale Farm.

And so, that was sort of a lovely way to start

'cause that scene is really the introduction to his character.

One of the things that we really tried to focus on

was less about the Jedi and more about the man.

We were really trying to do a series that was really focused on Ben Kenobi, the man.

Who is he and how does he feel?

And how does he deal with everything?

The Jedi is part of the identity, but really it was about him.

The Sandwhale Farm is actually one of my favorite sets,

and we were really looking at references of whaling stations of old.

He's living in Anchorhead which is a farming town,

so it's very much a blue-collar town in many ways.

I was really trying to make it feel gritty.

He's just an ordinary man at this point.

And just doing his daily routine.

Physically, he's rusty in terms of fighting

and also just rusty in terms of the desire to do it.

He's sort of lost, I think, Obi-Wan, in a way.

He doesn't have the same drive to fight for good.

Something you wanna say?

Okay. Backin' up.

Excuse me, everybody. Excuse me. Beep, beep.

If you're doing crosses, it's not business as normal.

Head down, aware that at any moment

they can turn around and snap your neck. Okay, thank you.

Action!

It was really exciting for me, coming on to this series

to take on a new aspect of the dark side.

These Inquisitors were first introduced

by Dave Filoni in his animated series, Rebels.

So, this is the first time in live-action for them.

The Inquisitorius is an organization that was created by Emperor Palpatine

after the Clone Wars.

And its primary purpose was to hunt down and eliminate Force users.

It's led by Darth Vader,

and many of the Inquisitors were former Jedi who turned to the dark side.

It is truly extraordinary.

It looks so close to what I'd pictured,

which is really weird, 'cause it isn't always that way.