Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen Reflect on Their “Surprising” Final Duel in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’
Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen spoke about their final battle in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series in a new interview released by Disney as part of the awards campaign for the series, which has earned Deborah Chow a nomination for the Directors Guild Awards among others. Both actors discussed their experience filming the series and the joy they felt working together again.
The interview was reported on by TheDirect.com (hat tip), who highlighted Ewan McGregor’s thoughts on reprising the character and how, despite heavy training and rehearsal, he was surprised by the experience of filming the intense conflict between Obi-Wan and his fallen apprentice:
Well, like Hayden said, it took us by surprise a bit, I think. In the playing of it, it became quite emotional in a way that I don’t think I had imagined it would be.
The Scottish actor bounced off of Hayden Christensen’s words as he reflected on the experience of becoming Vader again and taking on a more intense version of the character than he’d played before:
That big scene at the end between Vader and Obi-Wan. That was something I was, just, chomping at the bit to do and when we finally got to set, it had an emotional weight to it again that was maybe unexpected, um, and really felt too. But those are the exciting discoveries that you get to make, and getting to do that scene with Ewan was really a highlight of my entire Star Wars experience… I think the depth of his despair I understood in a sort of cerebral way before we came in and when we very, very first started talking about doing this movie, which became a series.
Ewan went on to describe his experience of preparing for the scene and taking on an Obi-Wan who has lost his master, his apprentice and his “Jedi mates” (Ewan’s words!). He also described Obi-Wan at this point as a man who has lost his faith, comparing him to other Jedi, who push themselves to be better Jedi while Obi-Wan is doing the exact opposite. Ewan shared his opinion that the initial Obi-Wan Kenobi movie transitioning into a series gave them more time to explore the emotional state of the character.
But despite understanding all this, the experience of filming the scenes took him by surprise:
[That was my feeling that it] wouldn’t it be interesting to take this character who we know and love from Alec Guinness through the original films, through my work in the prequels, and take to him to really different place where he’s broken? But I couldn’t have really imagined what that felt like until we played it and that was really interesting.
The physicality of the fights was described as a challenging experience that added to the intensity of the emotional experience for the actors, who trained extensively for the series:
The actual fight itself was unbelievably well-designed and choreographed by [Jonathan Eusebio], our fight arranger. Beautifully, beautifully realized… So carefully thought about and he’d studied all the fights we’d done in the prequels and took Obi-Wan’s style into a place where… somebody who’s rusty but also older and just very well thought out. But it was hard.
Ewan added that the physical environment increased the level of challenge significantly, saying that the gravelly set made it feel like they were dueling while “standing on marbles”, but the overall experience was “amazingly satisfying to do”. He went on to speak about the experience of reuniting with Hayden and how that added to (and enhanced) the emotion of those scenes:
I think both of us felt like it was beautiful for us to be working again together. And there was something about our lives and everything that happened to us since we last worked together. It was sort of in the air between us. So it was a real… I don’t know if the word ‘meta’ is right, but there was something beautiful about that and it did. It took me by surprise. It was just very moving.
Hayden also said that he was conscious that they were creating something new and significant, and that this was felt by everyone on set as they prepared for the shoot:
Getting to set for the first time Ewan and I were just acknowledging that there was just a different feeling and everyone in the crew understood the significance of the scene so there was a real reverence for the scene that we were about to do.
Both actors later talked further about their experiences filming Obi-Wan Kenobi and shooting the prequels. They were both high in praise of the Volume, comparing it to their extensive green/blue screen work in the prequels, and of Deborah Chow for her direction. You can watch the full interview at DisneyStudioAwards.com.
A teacher from Wales in the UK, Aled has loved Star Wars ever since that Star Destroyer flew over his head and blew his mind.
