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The Obi-Wan Kenobi cast on telling a new chapter in the Star Wars saga

Obi-Wan Kenobi is going from Tatooine to Anaheim, California.

Disney brought its latest galactic TV series to Star Wars Celebration on Thursday, giving fans a first look at the return of everyone's favorite bearded Jedi master. Just hours before the show's premiere on Disney+, EW sat down with director Deborah Chow and cast members Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Rupert Friend, and Moses Ingram to talk about how their series fits into the larger Star Wars saga — and what it was like to return to a galaxy far, far away.

"We're obviously in between two trilogies, where everybody knows what happened before and after," Chow explains. "That's been the biggest challenge, just trying to find the balance of telling a new story but respecting that legacy."

McGregor also opened up about revisiting the titular Jedi, who he previously played in The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

"He's a more broken character than we've ever seen before," McGregor says of Obi-Wan Kenobi's exiled hero. "We see at the end of Revenge of the Sith, everything he's known and worked for and worked toward is destroyed. His Jedi order that he loves and believes in is torn apart. All his friends are either killed or gone into hiding, so he's very much alone and lost. Also, he's carrying this amazing guilt because he feels that he lost his brother to the dark side, and he should've been able to see that was going to happen and stop that from happening. So, he's not only grieving, but he's also feeling responsible for losing his brother. It's a much darker, more broken place than we've ever seen the character before, either with me or with Alec Guinness."

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his eopie in a scene from Lucasfilm's OBI-WAN KENOBI, exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his eopie in a scene from Lucasfilm's OBI-WAN KENOBI, exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.

Lucasfilm Ewan McGregor in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'

Obi-Wan Kenobi also marks a reunion between McGregor and Christensen, who returns as Obi-Wan's former Padawan Anakin Skywalker, now fully committed to Sith life as Darth Vader. As Christensen explains, the biggest appeal of the show was getting to explore a very different side of Anakin — specifically, the dark side. (Christensen doesn't show up until the second episode, but the shot of a scarred Vader floating in a bacta tank might be one of the more horrifying images Star Wars has produced.)

"Obviously, when we did the prequels, my work was as Anakin, and I got to get my feet wet a little bit as Darth Vader," Christensen says. "But getting to come back and put a little bit more of my fingerprint on the character at this point in the timeline was just an incredible opportunity."

Watch the full interview above.

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