With Birds of Prey opening this weekend, and news that the Star Wars Obi-Wan series on Disney+ was having its production delayed, star Ewan McGregor’s been in the news quite a bit recently.
And while fans can’t wait for him to reprise his Star Wars prequel role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, McGregor told TODAY host Willie Geist, for PEOPLE, that his uncle, actor Denis Lawson, who played rebel pilot Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy (and had a fun cameo in The Rise of Skywalker) had been less than enthusiastic about McGregor originally accepting the role of the Jedi master – even advising the actor not to take the part.
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“[Denis] was always really dismissive of it,” McGregor explained, “because he did a couple of weeks work, sitting in a cardboard spaceship… and yet he had this massive following. It sort of annoyed him.”
When McGregor was considering the role of Obi-Wan, Denis “was one of the people who said, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it,” McGregor said. “And then the nearer I got to it, the more I wanted to do it.”
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For more on Obi-Wan Kenobi, check out everything we know about the series and see the moment when the long-awaited show was revealed during the D23 Expo 2019.
Check out all the Star Wars shows in development at Disney+ as the Star Wars films go on a hiatus.
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
Source: IGN.com Ewan McGregor's Uncle, Who Played Wedge Antilles, Didn't Want Him to Play Obi-Wan