Ewan McGregor Reveals The History Of The 'Jedi Mullet'

InsActor Ewan McGregor is taking a look back at his hairstyles from over twenty years ago.

In 1991, he first appeared as Obi-Wan Kenobi in “The Phantom Menace.” He reprised his role in the other two films in the prequel trilogy: “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith.”

The “Star Wars” star is sporting a slightly different haircut for his role in “Obi-Wan Kenobi” in order to reflect his mental state between the prequel and the original series. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the “Halston” actor broke down exactly what each haircut meant to his character at the time.

For “The Phantom Menace,” McGregor said that they wanted his hair to be short and joked that he had to make a “hairstyle sacrifice” in order to become a Jedi.

“I think they were looking for something in a military sense or in the world of monks that there's some sort of hairstyle sacrifice in order to be a Jedi,” he recalled. “I guess to become a Jedi you have to give up the idea of being married or there's some sort of monk-like qualities that are similar.”

“What I didn't like very much was when we came back, there was always a period of time after the main shoot where we came back to do some reshoots. And for episode 1, it was six, seven, eight months after the principal photography, we had to come back and I was doing something else and I couldn't cut my hair,” he continued. “And so they made a wig that was a short hair wig, which is the worst kind of wig.”

“If you've got a wig and it's long hair, you can disguise the fact that it's a wig, but when it's a short hair wig, it's a nightmare. I've seen some clips of both episode 1 and the reshoots from episode 2 where you're like, 'Are you kidding me?'”

“And then for episode 1, not only did I have to wear it for the reshoots, and it's usually just a little shot here or there for reshoots. And most people don't really notice it. But some bright spark decided to put me on a poster in the wig!” he added. “They picked an image of me from the reshoots and I saw myself in this huge poster in the wig. And I'm like, 'Are you kidding? You couldn't find a still of me when from the real shoot?' Unbelievable. I don't know who that was, but I'd love to meet them one day and just say, 'Are you f---ing kidding me about that?'”

For “Attack of the Clones,” McGregor sported a haircut that has since been known as the “Jedi Mullet.”

“It could be in some second-degree way a little cool, but not really,” he said. “It was very mullet-y and sort of quite inspired pretty much by the Bee Gees, I think really. Jedi Bee Gees. So yeah, I didn't like it very much, but I guess there's some sort of progression. Hayden had to go through a similar sort of progression with his hair where it's shorter when you were Padawan, then longer at the back.”

For the final film in the prequel series, “Revenge of the Sith,” the Emmy-award-winning actor revealed that the production team was leaning towards a haircut that would resemble Sir Alec Guinness, who portrayed Kenobi in the original trilogy.

“We were looking at pictures of Alec Guinness in episode 4 and we were definitely trying to bridge that gap. We thought, this is the last we're going to see of Obi-Wan Kenobi before he's Alec Guinness. And so we're sort of moving in that direction,” he explained. “We put some graying in here. We grayed up the beard a little bit. And it was a much shorter haircut. I think the episode 2 haircut was meant to be like warrior, and the episode 3 haircut was meant to be more master, teacher. So I think my idea was definitely to try and get closer to Alec Guinness. It was to try and show that that's where I was headed.”

In his most recent series, “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” McGregor revealed that it’s “a longer haircut.”

“I think it's a man who's been not looking after himself so much, and I wanted a much more sort of unkempt look where Obi-Wan starts at the beginning of that story, he's pretty hopeless,” he explained. “He's without hope, he's without faith and he wanted this sort of hair and beard to represent that. So it's much less groomed and longer.”

Fans will have to check out his newest haircut in “Obi-Wan Kenobi” when it drops on Disney+ on May 25, 2022.