A new picture of Ewan McGregor sporting a beard and looking very much like Obi-Wan Kenobi took the internet by storm over the weekend, leading many to speculate about whether or not the actor was going to return to the Star Wars universe in the near future. Ewan McGregor spoke to the press after winning a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a limited TV series in Fargo and shared his thoughts about his future as the Jedi Master. It was announced that the Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off movie is in the works with Stephen Daldry in talks to direct, which has led to a lot of talk of the return of Ewan McGregor.
Talks of Ewan McGregor's return to the Star Wars universe really started to heat up when The Force Awakens came out in 2015 when rumors started to circulate about the addition to Force Ghosts in the new trilogy. Ewan McGregor obviously didn't show up in The Force Awakens (well, except for his voice in Rey's vision) or The Last Jedi, but the actor has always stated that he would be interested in playing the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi again if the chance ever came up again. Now that a spin-off movie for the character is in development, those rumors have hit fever pitch.
In a new interview with press after winning a Golden Globe for Fargo Ewan McGregor was asked about his involvement in the Obi-Wan spin-off movie to which he replied that there have been no talks between him and Lucasfilm. McGregor stated that there has only been unofficial talk and that he claims to know about as much about the situation as we all do, which either means he's bluffing or there really have not been any official talks. However, McGregor said that he would love to return to play Obi-Wan Kenobi, so let's hope that some official talks start soon. McGregor had this to say.
"There's a lot of talk, I'd be happy to play him again, but I don't know any more about it than you do."
While claiming to not know anything about the Obi-Wan movie, Ewan McGregor mentioned that he saw Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi and that he really liked it, calling it "beautiful." There were a lot of rumors surrounding McGregor's return as a Force Ghost in the movie since it had been leaked that Yoda was going to make a return to the big screen. Obviously, Obi-Wan did not show up in The Last Jedi, so now the rumors are getting shifted to J.J. Abrams' Star Wars 9, which could happen.
Ewan McGregor claims that he has not been approached to play Obi-Wan Kenobi in the upcoming spin-off movie, but that doesn't mean that it won't happen. McGregor is still young enough to realistically pull off a young version of the Jedi Master and the fans are clamoring for it, even more so than the Han Solo spin-off, which comes out in May. It seems that we're going to have to sit and wait with Ewan McGregor to see if and when he returns as Obi-Wan Kenobi. In the meantime, you can check out the video interview with Ewan McGregor discussing Obi-Wan below, courtesy of Variety's YouTube channel.