If you run into Ewan McGregor anytime soon, you can feel free to say, “Hello there.” He gets it. Just don’t think you’re the first person to make the joke. The Obi-Wan Kenobi star hears his signature catchphrase quite a lot.
The actor recently sat down for a video breakdown of his greatest roles with British GQ and good-naturedly explained that he here’s the joke fairly often. He’s pretty familiar with “jokes” about the “high ground as well. “I don’t go many places without somebody saying “Hello there” to me and telling me something about the high ground,” McGregor explained.
With that said, one might imagine that McGregor was reluctant to don his Jedi robes again and bust out with yet another reading of his now signature line, but he told the interviewer that he was more than willing to make the effort for the younger generation of fans that grew up with the prequel trilogy he starred in. Although he admitted to being disappointed with the trilogy’s tepid response by old-school fans of the original trilogy, he says the response of people who saw the first three episodes of the series as children drew him back into character for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“Now I meet the generation we made them for, you know, I meet the young people who were kids then, who, for them, our Star Wars films were their Star Wars films and the 70s films are, they don’t have the same relationship with them. And it’s really nice for me. That’s really part of the reason I decided to do the TV series because I was aware of that. I mean, really, there’s a genuine appreciation for those films and it’s funny to feel it, like 15, 20 years later. But it’s nice to feel it 15, 20 years later.”
MacGregor also responded to some of the older criticism leveled at the prequels. While lauding director George Lucas’ choices to pursue something newer rather than a retread of the originals, McGregor noted that the special FX requirements often left him exhausted as an actor:
“We spent weeks walking around in a blue set speaking to a tennis ball on a stick or sometimes the tennis ball wasn’t even there, it was just like speaking into thin air and that, you know, I hope we did well and I hope it’s believable but it’s hard work, it’s difficult to do that and to sort of keep your stamina up in that non-environment is pretty tough. You don’t learn that at drama school.”
Fans wanting to say “Hello there” to Kenobi can do so on Disney Plus. All six episodes of the miniseries are currently streaming there (as well as all three prequels).