‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ star reveals the one condition he laid down for his return

Obi-Wan Kenobi may not have been the most memorable Star Wars project out there, and while it didn’t compare to the critical punch of Andor nor the space battle cheese offered up by The Mandalorian, there is one aspect that the series remains arguably unbeaten in; fan service.

Indeed, along with the obvious return of one Ewan McGregor as the titular Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi was the site of returns for a helmetless Hayden Christensen and even a last-episode cameo from Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn. They may have been small touches in the grand scheme of things, but for prequel fans especially, they were delightful little morsels.

But it wasn’t just legacy Jedi that returned for Obi-Wan Kenobi; Joel Edgerton also helped shore up the prequel representation by returning as Owen Lars, the stepbrother of Anakin Skywalker and the uncle of Luke, the latter of whom Owen and his wife Beru were raising during the events of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Owen’s role in the story is limited, serving up some expositional tension between himself and Obi-Wan in the first episode before unsuccessfully taking up arms against Reva in the final one, but the promise of that latter set piece was more than enough to bring Edgerton back into the fold. In an interview with Screen Rant, the actor revealed the one condition he had for coming back as Owen; namely, he had to be allowed to shoot a blaster.

I didn’t have to push that hard [for the fight], I think there was already a feeling that they wanted to see me mess with a little bit of violence in that series, but yeah, I was definitely keen to push it myself.

Owen and Beru were ultimately incapacitated by Reva, who thankfully had a change of heart before she could seal Luke’s fate, but for Edgerton, we’re sure it’s fun while it lasted.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is available to stream on Disney Plus.