Ewan McGregor’s upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ show is gearing up to resume filming.
McGregor was a guest on “The Graham Norton Show” on Friday and confirmed the series had a new start date. “It’s the Obi-Wan Kenobi story, I suppose,” McGregor said. “We start shooting it in March next year.”
He also added that while doing research for the “Star Wars” prequels, he took inspiration from the late Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original 1977’s “Star Wars.”
“The fun thing about doing them in the first place when I was much younger was trying to imagine Alec Guinness, how would he play these scenes as a younger guy? It led me to watch a lot of his early work, which I hadn’t seen before. Brilliant movies, wonderful films that he’d been in and I had such a great time studying him in those movies.”
Earlier this year, production on “Obi-Wan” was placed on hold indefinitely and the crew at Pinewood Studios in London had been sent home. However, at a “Birds of Prey” press event shortly thereafter, McGregor addressed the drama surrounding “Obi-Wan,” telling reporters that despite news the production has been delayed, the show was happening as scheduled and most of what had been reported was “bulls–.”
“We just pushed the shoot to the beginning of next year. The scripts are really good. I saw 90% of the writing and I really liked it,” Mcgregor said during a press scrum at the event.
Announced last summer during D23 2019, the Obi-Wan series will take place at some point during the 19-year gap between the end of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” and “Star Wars: A New Hope.” McGregor will once again play the Jedi Master originally portrayed by Guinness and executive produce the series, alongside series director Deborah Chow and writer Hossein Amini. Jason McGatlin, Lucasfilm’s executive vice president of production, will serve as co-producer.
The project will be the third live-action “Star Wars” series for Disney+, following “The Mandalorian” and the “Rogue One” prequel series centered on Diego Luna’s character, Cassian Andor.