Ewan McGregor almost turned down Obi-Wan Kenobi due to Star Wars backlash

The Scottish star has reprised his role as the Jedi master in the new Disney+ series but he admitted it wasn’t an easy decision because he struggled with the heavy use of special effects in the three movies he made – which was released between 1999 and 2005 – and his experience had been soured by unfavourable reviews.

He told Total Film magazine: “I found it very hard to make those films. It was lots and lots of green screen and blue screen. By the time we did ‘Episode III’, it was almost all entirely green screen.

If there was bit of a set, that was a turn-up for the books. They were just so hard to make.

“And also, at the time, they weren’t received very well.

“Every time they were released, they were being hammered. And that didn’t feel very good.”

He later returned to another of his previous projects, ‘Trainspotting’ to make a sequel, and he began to think returning to ‘Star Wars’ might also be a good idea.

Ewan explained: “I started thinking, ‘I want to do it. Why wouldn’t you?’ (with Trainspotting) and the same thing happened with Obi-Wan …”

Bosses at Lucasfilm eventually contacted him about the possibility of a new film and it lead to the creation of ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ as a TV show following on from the success of another Disney+ ‘Star Wars’ venture – ‘The Mandalorian’.

The new show reunites Ewan with his previous co-star Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in the previous films.

The trilogy showed his character’s evolution into super villain Darth Vader and the masked Sith Lord is returning in the new show with Hayden back in the fabled black suit.