Star Wars: The Force Awakens had plenty of big cameos, but one of the biggest ones surprised fans who never expected to hear a certain character again.
J.J. Abrams revealed last month that Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel trilogy, recorded a line for the scene that launched a thousand theories. You can hear him toward the end of Rey‘s vision, triggered by Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. As McGregor told Jimmy Kimmel Thursday night, it was a team effort.
McGregor, who expressed interest in returning to Star Wars if there were an Obi-Wan movie set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, said he’d been waiting for the call from Abrams for two years. When he went in to record the dialog, he even got to see some of the film before anyone else.
“The line is, ‘Rey, these are your first steps,’” McGregor explained. “But they got Alec Guinness to do ‘Rey,’ which is extraordinary because he’s not alive anymore. They got a line of him as Obi-Wan Kenobi saying ‘afraid’ and cut the ‘A’ and the ‘D’ off. So Alec Guinness is saying ‘Rey,’ and I’m saying ‘These are your first steps.’”
Screengrab via Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube
