Ewan McGregor never expected to play the Jedi Master again: 'I didn't want Star Wars prequels to define my career'

"I remember in the run-up to being cast as Obi-wan Kenobi back in the 1990s, I spent a lot of time wondering whether I should take the part and what it would mean for my career because I was doing grungy films like Trainspotting at the time. In the end, I did it because I loved Star Wars when I was a kid. My uncle Dennis Lawson played a pilot called Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy and my brother and I knew every line, so I wanted to be a part of that world. However when our prequels came out they weren’t very well-received, so I threw myself back into my other work. I was proud of the Star Wars prequels, but I didn’t want them to define my career."

"I remember going back to make the Trainspotting sequel and that was an amazing experience, so I began to see how interesting it could be to return to a character 20 years later. I was also more aware of people who liked the prequel trilogy we made 20 years ago. The generation of Star Wars fans who were kids at the time they came out really loved them, so I’m their Obi-Wan, just like Alec Guinness was mine. People were always asking me if I would play him again in interviews and I just started saying yes!"

"I started by watching all of the films again in order. Then I watched the spin-off movies and by that time I’d had lots of chats with our brilliant director Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian). I was also a producer on this show, so I’ve been involved with shaping the script, so I was slowly being drawn back into that world. Then it was all about doing screen tests with some other young actors, so I went to Manhattan Beach studios in California, where they were filming The Mandalorian. The crew went to grab some vague Obi-Wan-style costume from the extras department. Everyone on set was a massive Star Wars fan, so it was interesting to see people’s reactions when I walked out wearing those robes 18 years after I last played him. Seeing people’s reactions was quite a funny moment and it helped me find his voice again, although I still have to imagine Alec Guinness saying the lines!"

"I did a lot of training! I worked with my friend Tony Horton, who’s a great trainer, for three months solidly and then we started practising the fight sequences a couple of months before we started shooting. Filming the lightsaber battles is a little bit like a boxing match. There’s no bell, but when someone yells “cut!” you head back to your corner and catch your breath. Any kind of fighting on-screen takes an extraordinary amount of energy, so you have to be in good shape!"

"StageCraft is a real game-changer because it puts you in the environment and the possibilities are endless. From a city center to a desert, suddenly you’re there. They also do amazing interiors, so the inside of a spacecraft that might take millions to build can be designed on a laptop. Directors love "the golden hour", which happens when the sun is rising and in the past I’ve made loads of movies where we all had to get up at four in the morning to catch it. But now you can have "golden hour" at the click of a keyboard."