'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Director Dishes On Hayden Christensen's Return As Darth Vader

Fans can't wait to see Hayden Christensen back on screen in the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series, which is set to debut in May.

Star Ewan McGregor first took over the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi (who was portrayed by the late Sir Alec Guinness in the original trilogy) in 1991’s “The Phantom Menace.” He quickly became known for his chemistry with Hayden Christensen, who became his apprentice Anakin Skywalker. However, after Anakin fell to the dark side, he was later remade into Darth Vader.

Although fans got to see Darth Vader strike down Guinness’ Kenobi in “A New Hope,” the first film in the “Star Wars” franchise, fans have seen little of Kenobi’s time watching over a young Luke Skywalker on Tatooine. Fans are anxious to see their favorite prequel characters return to the screen once again, and director Deborah Chow was all too happy to cast some light on what it was like seeing Hayden Christensen don the iconic Darth Vader suit.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chow, who has previously directed an episode of “The Mandalorian” on the other Disney+ “Star Wars” series, said that it was “moving” to see Hayden back on set as Darth Vader.

“The first time I saw him in costume and the full thing going, he's towering over me,” she recalled. “He's like literally almost twice my size, it felt like. It's really intense to have such an iconic character, and then to be directing him and to be doing new scenes with him. So I do remember poor Ewan on that day, he's like, ‘What am I, chopped liver by comparison right now?’”

“But I know that for Vader, it's something that it's almost part of our consciousness because we've all had it in our lives for so long that to actually see him on set, it's pretty sort of significant,” she added. “It's kind of moving.”

When asked what his character will be like, Chow said that he was sort of stuck in the middle between the two trilogies.

“For us, it's very similar [to Obi-Wan] in the sense that he's in between these two trilogies,” she explained. “So he isn't the ‘A New Hope’ Vader quite yet, you know what I mean? So we are with the character sort of in the middle of this period. It is still Vader obviously, but it's a Vader that isn't quite as fully formed as ‘A New Hope’.”

“Obviously Hayden was going to be part of this series, and when he first came on to set for us, it definitely had a very special feeling,” she recalled. “And it was a really interesting moment for me because you really started to see the different generations and how they connect to Star Wars and the franchise, where you have a generation that grew up with the prequels first and with Hayden.”

“It's a totally different thing for them than a generation that grew up with the originals,” she added. “And then there's younger generations with the new ones.”

“So it felt really special bringing him back,” she continued. “And obviously I'm Canadian and he's Canadian, so that was also very heartwarming for me. We were having some Canadian pride on that day.”

She also called him “lovely” and “absolutely wonderful” to work with.

“So the first time I met him actually was in Toronto, and it was really nice because we sort of met up in Canada, and obviously both with people like Ewan and Hayden, they've been these characters for so long and they obviously did them in the prequels, and they've lived with this character in their lives for so long that they just know the character so well, which makes it so helpful in terms of the creative,” she explained.

Although a previous report alleged that Darth Vader was only brought in to replace Darth Maul in a later draft, Chow hinted that she always wanted to bring the character of Darth Vader into the series.

“Honestly, for me, the starting place was that I really wanted to do something that was character-based and character-driven, because that is the benefit of the limited series, is that you have more time to sort of tell a real character story,” she said. “And so for me, the starting place of character is you just start and you look at who has been important to him in his life. And it's quite hard to avoid Anakin/Vader in that scenario, especially coming out of ‘Revenge of the Sith’.”

“So really it came out of an evolution of the character for me,” she continued. “It wasn't just to sort of bringing him back. It was really like, who means something and where are we at this point in the timeline with Vader?”

Fans will just have to see for themselves where Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi are at in their respective journeys when “Obi-Wan Kenobi” finally debuts on Disney+ on May 25, 2022.