“It’s frustrating a lot of the time”: Even the Generally Calm Ewan McGregor Slammed How One Star Wars Movie Was ‘The weirdest job you’ll ever do”

Even for a die-hard Star Wars fan like Ewan McGregor, the weight of carrying the franchise and one of its leading IPs can get a bit too much for his temperament. The legendary Jedi Master has had his fair share of troubles and hardships to overcome until his protégé Anakin Skywalker transformed into Darth Vader. A soul-crushing experience such as that one equated to a betrayal of everything he valued and reflected an utter failure on his part to save his friend from the Dark Side of the Force.

The eventual retirement of Obi-Wan Kenobi from the public forum and going on to live the remainder of his days in isolation and self-imposed exile, watching over Luke Skywalker on the desert planet of Tattooine mostly served as penance for his once-glorious life in the heydays of the Jedi Order.

In the end, all of Ewan McGregor’s experiences dictate the universe of Star Wars and its formative events from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s point of view. But no matter how tragically drawn out his life turned out to be, it hardly compared to McGregor’s frustration with working in the era of CGI and VFX.

Ewan McGregor Expressed His Frustration With Blue Screen

In recent years, the complaint against the use of blue and green screens has only grown stronger among actors after realizing the inadequate, unfulfilling, and mediocre experience of working against a blank wall with no frame of reference to guide their dialogues, actions, and eye lines. For Ewan McGregor, that complaint peaked during his time on the set of Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

In an interview with Insider, the Scottish actor revealed:

“It’s frustrating a lot of the time because there’s nothing there, and it’s been much more so on this one, There’s less and less here, which for an actor is not great. There’s no interaction. It becomes technical, and there’s nothing to play off. It’s not what I’m used to doing or what I particularly like doing the best.

Then’s something very rewarding about cracking a scene with other actors and having achieved it. With this, you do the scene and it feels like nothing’s happened. It’s like walking through a dead space and trying to be alive in it. We used to go on location and shoot in beautiful places and light them. Now, you’re doing lines against a blue curtain and walking down. It’s the weirdest job you’ll ever do.”

With Ewan McGregor driving the prequel trilogy’s central plot forward alongside Hayden Christensen and his lengthy scenes stretching across the galaxy involving his travels to execute his duties as a Jedi, the actor’s extensive use of the blue screen is virtually impossible to avoid. As such, his complaint against the blue screen is justified for the lack of a dynamic background to saturate his role with a sense of originality.

Ewan McGregor Revisits the Nostalgia of the Prequel Trilogy

Despite the ugliness of the criticism that plagued the cast and crew of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the fans who grew apart in the aftermath of the films due to the disconcerting storyline have slowly started finding their way back to the arc. Ewan McGregor, one of its leading men, had become weary of the constant threats lunged at the films and retracted into his shell, until recently.

In recent years, the resurgence of the love for the prequel trilogy due to their expansive themes of politics, love, and vengeance has brought back McGregor’s attention to his beloved franchise. With Disney+ bringing the streaming era to the forefront of the media scene, series like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka gave the fans an opportunity to revisit periods in Obi-Wan and Anakin’s lives that slipped through the cracks of the prequel era.

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is available for streaming on Disney+