Ewan McGregor explains his minor role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Ewan McGregor, who played the legendary Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’ prequel trilogy, has spoken about reprising the role (on a much smaller scale) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, McGregor sat down with Jimmy Kimmel this week and reminisced about his return to Star Wars, and how excited he was to be a part of the new trilogy.

“I’d been waiting for the call to come for two years,” he said on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I thought maybe they’ve lost my agent’s phone number. Then I got a call from J.J. [Abrams] just shortly before the film was released. He asked me to come in and said, ‘I’d love you to be a part of it.'”

McGregor wasn’t the only Jedi alumni to lend his voice to The Force Awakens, original Ben Kenobi actor, the late Alec Guiness, can be heard in the very same line of dialogue: ‘Rey, these are your first steps.”

“But they got Alec Guinness to do ‘Rey,’ which is extraordinary because he’s not alive anymore,” Mcgregor explained. “They got a line of him as Obi-Wan Kenobi saying ‘afraid,’ and cut the ‘A’ and the ‘D’ off. So Alec Guinness is saying ‘Rey,’ and I’m saying, ‘These are your first steps.'”

Here is the clip of McGregor explaining the extraordinary screen magic: