While Star Wars fans eagerly await the return of Ewan McGregor in Obi-Wan Kenobi, iconic franchise star Mark Hamill has been celebrating the birthday of original Obi-Wan actor, the legendary Sir Alec Guinness, who would have turned 108 years old today. Having appeared as Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, Guinness introduced the world to the Jedi master and his mind tricks in 1977, and despite his character being killed by Darth Vader in the movie, he also made appearances as a “Force Ghost” in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi.
Hamill shared a series of images of the late actor on his Instagram account, including some behind the scenes images of the pair on the set of Star Wars. He also paid a touching tribute to the actor, who he said was “everything I wanted him to be.” Hamill wrote, “Born April 2nd 1914 #AlecGuinness is one of the finest & most versatile actors of all time. He also happened to be kind, warm, witty, as well as generous & unassuming. He was everything I wanted him to be… & much, much more.”
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While Hamill was pleased to learn from one of the greats of the industry, Guinness himself was not necessarily happy with his time working on the space opera. “Apart from the money, I regret having embarked on the film,” he later said. “I like them well enough, but it’s not an acting job, the dialogue — which is lamentable — keeps being changed and only slightly improved, and I find myself old and out of touch with the young.”
In his autobiography, the actor also confessed that he once only gave an autograph to a fan that told him they had seen the movie a hundred times with the proviso that they never watched it again.
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While Guinness had an outstanding career outside of the Star Wars franchise and may not have thought of Star Wars in quite the same way as the franchise’s fans, Ewan McGregor, who first played the role of Kenobi in 1999’s The Phantom Menace and took many of the character traits from Guinness, is very happy to be returning to the role for the first time in two decades in Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi.
There is little doubt that McGregor would have loved to have worked with Guinness in the same way Hamill had the opportunity to back in 1977, but even without learning directly from the master, McGregor has embodied the role of Kenobi for a lot longer than his predecessor and fans are eager to see him back in the role this May. While there is not a great deal known about the plot of the series, it will fill a gap in the story of Kenobi between McGregor’s last appearance as the character and his original appearance played by Guinness in Star Wars.
While Guinness passed away in 2000 and did not see much of the development of Kenobi’s character through the prequel movies, the legacy of the character has always remained intact, and Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi will most likely see more people returning to the original Star Wars movies to relive Guinness’ performance all over again.
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Anthony Lund
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Anthony Lund is an author, songwriter and puppeteer from a small village in the U.K. with an avid love of all genres of TV and film. As well as keeping up with the lastest entertainment news and writing about it for MovieWeb, he works as a video editor, voice over artist and production designer. A child of the 80s, he is the owner of almost 2000 books, more toys than his children, three Warner Bros. Store Gremlins and a production used Howard The Duck movie script.
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