well i don't i don't know if i'm getting
into spoiler territory here can i can i
say anything that possibly gets into
spoiler territory here
[Music]
i'm eu mcgregor my name is hayden
christensen my name is moses ingram i
play anakin skywalker i play riva
savander and i play the part of obi-wan
kenobi
[Music]
jedi knight never a jedi master
turned darth vader lord of the sith i am
an inquisitor i would call myself the
inquisitor actually a very complex
character he has a strong sort of desire
for power fear is fiercely intelligent
and very quick on her feet someone who
is always listening and intent on doing
what she thinks is right even if no one
else agrees with what it is that she's
doing there's also a lot of
inner conflict uh and there's there's
certainly a an inner sort of struggle of
identity
i was living in vancouver at the time i
was renting an apartment with a good
friend of mine he knew that i was up for
this role and i was i was going to be
finding out soon i got the phone call
when i was still in bed actually i
remember coming out of the room just
like an ear to ear grin on my face and
my roommate looked at me and was like is
that you know is that smile why you know
what i think it is and then so i
i lit up an imaginary lightsaber you
know
and immediately he got it and then he
ran over to his record player and he had
a star wars soundtrack and he put the
star wars soundtrack on and then he lit
up his imaginary lightsaber and we had a
whole
lightsaber battle as we were laughing
and jumping all over the couch and
apartment and it was it was a
very exciting time for me yeah it was
amazing time i mean i i've been working
with danny boyle and i did a film with
green away and i'd done a certain amount
of work in britain and i very much felt
like i was in a moment in british cinema
and and star wars was definitely in a
different lane i did a lot of thinking
about it a lot of research a lot of
speaking to people i knew and
trusted about their opinion about it
whether it was the right thing to do or
not and then the closer i got to being
cast as obi-wan i the more i wanted to
do it you know i was such a great fan of
the original films as a child and i felt
like i just wanted to be part of that if
i could be part of that then i would
want to do that i don't think i said
anything actually it was like one
intense really
long week of auditioning and then we got
to that final zoom and i thought i was
going to have to do something else and
dep told me i had the job and honestly i
think i probably was like
okay
thanks i think that's how it went by the
time i actually heard about it i was
stoked you know it was a it was a great
experience it was different from
anything i'd done in terms of its scale
i got to work with liam neeson and ahmed
best and natalie portman and i had a
great experience you know making those
films
on the original films it was the
technology the fact that we did so much
of the filming on blue screen and green
screen there were certain
challenges with that the fact that there
was so little of the environment there
in episode two for instance i spent a
lot of time with some tall alien people
who weren't really there so that that
was challenging as for an actor to make
that all realistic well this one
required a lot more athleticism than
anything else we did about four months
of training before we ever even hit the
stage to start acting and so it just
took a lot
to
pull everything together in that way i
always had a tough time not making the
lightsaber sound effects when i was when
i was doing my lightsaber scenes just
because you're you're sort of
it's like muscle memory from being a kid
i always have the the acting challenge
of like playing a younger alec guinness
and that's my great joy in doing this is
to feel like i'm moving towards becoming
alec guinness you know that's always
what i'm trying to do
well uh it's difficult to pinpoint a
favorite scene some of them are so long
ago oh
it's really hard to pick just one there
were a number of scenes that were very
memorable working with hayden again was
a great pleasure to be coming back with
him after so long since we you know 17
years after we finished episode three
was uh was great the first scene that we
shot on the very first day it was
stepping off of our ship and i remember
thinking to myself oh my god this is
this is huge and they were like air
cannons and
so many people and i think my first
thought was don't don't mess this up
don't mess this up at the end of episode
three when the darth vader helmet comes
down and he's officially encapsulated in
the suit that for me was was a very big
moment and i remember that very well our
costume designer pseudorat did such an
amazing job building that costume it
sort of just lends itself to making you
stand in a certain way i felt
bold and i felt strong and i felt like
the leader that reba is at the time it
felt like sort of completion for for my
journey with the character you know i
was playing anakin and then when he
becomes darth vader that's sort of
right um but now i've gotten to come
back and continue my journey with the
character but at the time it signified
that my my job was done uh
little did i know
[Music]
probably the biggest thing is that it
already has millions of fans and i think
the thing that's daunting is that
whether people like it or not i'm
absolutely gonna hear about it and
that's scary i don't know that it's it's
changed my view of star wars in this
character as much as as it's just sort
of further informed the story and these
characters and that was kind of what was
was really appealing about it for me was
that we were given the opportunity to to
sort of flush these characters out just
a little bit more it's also super
exciting to be joining a project in
which i don't have the same things to
live up to as ewin and hayden do i am
coming in as somebody who's never been
here before and so nobody is looking for
me to be something specific and i sort
of have free reign to be who i think
riva is getting to come back and play
darth vader and this sort of the notion
that we were
going to get a glimpse into the
experience of being darth vader i
thought that had a tremendous amount of
value so it's really just been about
further informing
these characters i felt has been sort of
very satisfying you know i wasn't a big
fan of star wars before this i knew like
the cultural pinpoints like vader luke i
am your father obi-wan those things but
i think what i've appreciated is
the depth of the world that george lucas
built and the escapism it provides so
many people and provides myself now i've
been very very happy to join the
universe
volume is just an amazing bit of
technology the approach to working in
the volume is much different than
filming in front of a blue screen or a
green screen i never had to pretend
or imagine where i was you and hayden
sort of were used to like green screens
and tennis balls i feel really blessed
that i could just walk in and be in
whatever environment i was in you're
totally surrounded by it and it's
incredible you step into the volume and
you're in star wars you can never really
see sort of where it ends because it's
so vast i think that was probably one of
my favorite things about working on the
series it's quite the experience
if i could be one star wars creature who
would it be well i'd like to meet jar
jar again i guess i'm gonna go with yoda
just to see if i could get some of his
wisdom maybe some of his knowledge might
might rub off on me i loved working with
ahmed best who played jar jar binks
maybe we could bring him back