Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen take Fan Expo Chicago!
- Antal Bokor
- Aug 22
- 3 min read
We got to catch Ewan McGregor on his Fan Expo “Please Hire Me Back as Obi-Wan” Tour, where he was accompanied by his former on-screen padawan Hayden Christensen. However, beyond an impressive lightsaber demonstration, the two didn’t interact much beyond Ewan McGregor telling Christensen that he’ll call him–or at least that’s what I got through gestures and lip reading. So it was really two half panels rolled into one, but McGregor turned out to be the real charmer.
Before the panel started we were treated to a fan tribute, which Ewan McGregor genuinely appreciated, calling it ‘touching.’ He seems to understand the fan’s love of everything Star Wars and even acknowledges the fans will know more than him when most subjects are discussed. As it turned out, fan knowledge came up quite a bit.
The real deep cuts from fans came when the subject of lightsaber fights came up. McGregor was telling about how his fights with Christensen would be so fast and brutal, that not only did they need to manipulate the film to make the speeds seem more believable–they were also constantly switching out lightsabers with ones with fresh “blades” as the hollow tubed lightsaber blades used on set would bend after a while.
When McGregor was talking about the sci-fi prop armorer responsible for changing those blades, an audience member yelled out “Thomas!” to which McGregor replied “I don’t even know why I’m here! You all know more than I do!”
McGregor also talked about his love for Andor, and how while watching it he got the idea of a potential Obi-Wan in season 3.
Said Ewan said “I really liked (Andor) and then I got really excited. I was thinking ‘I could be in this timeline. I think I am! I think I could be in season three!."
And then I realized "Oh No!”
In another fun moment the actor portraying the wise Jedi Master mistook a General Kenobi figure in maroon armor as a sort of Mandalorian x Obi-Wan hybrid. But when he found out the truth, he took it in grinning stride, saying “oh, that’s right, that’s right.”
In a few rapid fire question moments we got to find out whether Obi-Wan is a dog or a cat person. After a nearly 20 second pause McGregor concedes that Ob-Wan would be a dog person. Despite being a cat person, I can get behind this. When the vague question “Star Destroyer or Death Star” McGregor said “Star Destroyer.” and offered up reasons such as “they’re very pointy” and “they do that stop there” while mimicking a Star Destroyer dropping out of hyperspace with his hands. Then he spontaneously admitted “I’m still embarrassed about that Mandalorian thing.” It’s okay Ewan, we forgive you.
When McGregor left the stage for Hayden Christensen’s portion of the panel, there was a bit of lightsaber fun before they parted ways. And the subject of lightsabers came up rather quickly with the prop armorer Thomas being mentioned immediately.Thinking Christensen was continuing a “bit” about Thomas the lightsaber maker, the actor instead went into how he was genuinely appreciative at the sci-fi prop armorer’s contributions–as we all are. I guess the real hero of the story here is Thomas–bringing sci-fi magic to life.
Christensen also mentioned how exciting it is to work on a Star Wars film. On his experience working on the prequels he said that “one of the unique things about working on a Star Wars project is that everyone is just so excited to be there. And George Lucas got the very best people in each of their respective fields to come in and participate.
"The costume design. The set design.”
And of course, Thomas.
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