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Obi-Wan: Deborah Chow on How Kurosawa, Westerns Influenced Series

Disney+ & Lucasfilm are starting to ramp up the promotional machine for director Deborah Chow's Ewan McGregor & Hayden Christensen-starring "Star Wars" spinoff series Obi-Wan Kenobi. And that includes the trio hitting the interview circuit early to begin setting expectations and getting fans excited (more on that in a minute). This time around, Chow is sharing which films had a hand in influencing her approach to the project during an interview with Total Film. Set during a dark time in the "Star Wars" canon, Chow looked to "gritty, poetic westerns" like Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James and John Hillcoat's The Proposition. But it wasn't just westerns that helped guide Chow's directorial hand…

"I love [Akira] Kurosawa, too," Chow revealed. "There's such a strong correlation for me between the Jedi and the Ronin – particularly in this period where all the Jedi are being hunted. I was really looking at what you do if you're the last samurai. You're more than just a warrior. There's also an ethical code that goes along with it, in a world that's vastly changed. That really had a pretty big effect on what we were trying to do." McGregor, Christensen & Chow had some interesting things to share with EW in a recent interview, especially with the way the limited series will impact "Star Wars" canon:

So Is Darth Vader Referring Back to His Face-Off in "Obi-Wan"?

Christensen (smiling): "Maybe?"

McGregor: "Maybe. It's fun. It's very clever how all these threads are created. It's like working backwards and forwards at the same time for the writers and for Deborah [Chow]."

Chow on Being Mindful of Any Possible Canon Changes: "It was definitely something we were very mindful of. And for me also taking on [George Lucas'] legacy, it's an honor to take these characters and be able to tell a new story with them. So I wanted to be very respectful to what exists and not change anything that George intended originally or anything like that. Obviously, there is room for interpretation here. And telling [the story] that they did have these 20 years, and obviously something happened in these 20 years, and that there are some things from our series where there's going to be a little bit more room for interpretation on."

McGregor on How Director Chow Handled Working in Two Timelines: "Deborah Chow is unbelievable. What an amazing director. And what an amazing leader for us in the show. It's so great working with her. Just so exciting. She has got such quiet authority and she's really, really on it. She really knows this world backwards and inside out, and there was never a moment where she didn't know exactly what was going on, what she wanted, what she needed. It was brilliant working with her. For her, in the pre-production process, making all of that work and taking things that were said on the set in 1975 and trying to link it into what we said in 2003 and making it all work — it's a really interesting prospect, and they did such an amazing job with it."

Now here's a look at the official teaser for Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, set to hit the Disney+ streaming service on May 27th with two episodes:

Joining McGregor & Christensen are Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, Benny Safdie, Maya Erskine, and Grant Feely– with the series taking place 10 years after Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, where Kenobi faced his greatest defeat: the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (Christensen) turned evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. Director Deborah Chow moves from directing episodes of The Mandalorian to directing the entire run of the series with directorial "geek cred" that also includes American Gods, Better Call Saul, Lost in Space, Jessica Jones, Reign, and Mr. Robot. In April 2020, Joby Harold (Army of the Dead) was tapped to replace Hossein Amini (Drive) after reports surfaced that Kennedy was dissatisfied with Amini's scripts. Legendary composer and "Star Wars" franchise Hall-of-Famer John Williams is set to compose the theme for the series.

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