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Ewan McGregor has recently been very vocal about his desire to return as Obi-Wan Kenobi — and even has a few pitches for what his “Star Wars” character could get up to in a new project.
Speaking at the Variety Lounge
at Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Scottish star said he’d got as far as taking his ideas to Lucasfilm boss Dave Filoni, who was shooting “Ahsoka” with his wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead at the time.
“It was very casual, but I said there’s got to be something,” McGregor said. “Because Yoda’s somewhere else. After the end of ‘Episode III’, when we all go to the four or five corners of the galaxy — or however many corners it’s got! — I won’t have been in touch with him. But he’s out there. So I think there could be a story there where I’m trying to reach out to him.”
Speaking of “Ahsoka,” when Winstead joined the series as New Republic general Hera Syndulla, McGregor said he also began dreaming up ideas for Kenobi.
“I got very excited when Mary started working on ‘Ahsoka’. I thought, maybe this is the big love story — Obi-Wan and Hera,” he said. However, while McGregor said that “time doesn’t really mean anything” in the various “multiverses” of Star Wars, he acknowledged that Kenobi and Hera “were in different time frames.”
Whether McGregor gets to don the Jedi master’s trademark robes again remains to be seen (Filoni very recently told Variety on the D23 red carpet that “The Hunt for Ben Solo” movie was currently not in the works), but he reiterated that he’d “be up” for returning in any feature or series. “I enjoyed doing the series very much… and would be happy to do it again. I like playing him — he’s a really good character to play.”
Away from galaxies far far away and to somewhere much closer to home, McGregor also discussed with Variety how much he enjoyed moving back to Scotland and his home region of Perthshire.
“It feel really, really good — I’m surprised how effortless it’s been,” he said. “I didn’t imagine it, but I’m really glad of it — I feel very comfortable there. And I’ve got my little boy, who’s 5, and he’s going to grow up there in much the same way that I did, which is nice.”
He added that he’s been enjoying jumping on his Vespa to meet family members, including his brother in the north of Scotland.
“I just went up there for a cup of tea with him,” he said. “And when I got back, I realized I’d never had that experience in my whole adult life, of being able to pop round. I’ve always lived somewhere. I left home at 16. I was really missing something all these years, but now I can jump on my bike and I’ll be at my mum and dad’s house in half an hour.”
As well as living up in Perthshire, McGregor has also found work there, recently announced as joining Alan Cumming next year in an stage adaptation of Harry Macqueen’s acclaimed feature “Supernova” at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
“We’ve done two readings of it, just of the film script,” he said. “But I’ve never got through the read-throughs without bawling my eyes out — it’s just so moving.”
