Although Lawson has clarified in other interviews that he doesn’t hate the franchise or anything, he has expressed plenty of frustration with how the gig he did for a couple of weeks in the ’70s/early ’80s has so thoroughly overshadowed his impressive work in other films. (“I get bored with journalists asking me about ‘Star Wars’ and somehow that has been transposed over into me hating the films,” he told the Scottish Field in 2017.) It’s a frustration that plenty of artists have struggled with over the years — Michael Keaton of “Batman” fame did a whole movie about it in 2014 — and it’s one that Lawson wanted to spare McGregor from. As McGregor recalled:
“He was one of the people who said, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.’ And then the nearer I got to it, the more I wanted to do it.”
But while McGregor is still probably best known for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, it hasn’t overshadowed his career to the same extent as his uncle’s. From “Fargo” to “Christopher Robin,” “Doctor Sleep,” and “Birds of Prey,” McGregor’s given us plenty of fun mainstream roles to talk about over the years. It probably helped that the prequels just weren’t as well-received as the original trilogy; whereas everyone loves to reminisce on the films Lawson starred in, most viewers (even “Star Wars” fans themselves) have often been happy to just pretend the prequels never happened.
That hasn’t stopped McGregor from getting his own prequel spin-off series, of course, but it has helped him achieve a freedom in his career that other “Star Wars” actors haven’t gotten. When asked if he’s glad he took on the prequel role back in the ’90s, McGregor in 2020 answered immediately: “I’m so glad I did.”
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