J.J. Abrams Reveals Alec Guinness Was In The Force Awakens

OK, so if you’ve not seen ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ yet, it’s best to stop reading because its director, J.J. Abrams, has confirmed the classic stars that appear in the new film.

Spoilers to follow!

During the scene where Daisy Ridley’s Rey stumbles around a dark area of Maz Kantana’s castle as she discovers Luke’s lightsabre, we hear a number of voices in the flashback/vision our young heroine experiences.

At the time it’s a quick, disorientating montage of Kylo Ren standing over slain bodies, a cloaked Luke Skywalker reaching towards R2-D2, and a younger version of Rey being abandoned on Jakku.

Do you recall the voices though?

Well Abrams has confirmed that they include a number of original cast members from both trilogies.

He revealed that not only did Ewan McGregor and Frank Oz reprise their roles (in voice form at least) as Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda (although in the end audio from original trilogy Yoda was used), but the late Alec Guinness was included too.

Abrams explains: “The idea of the voices was, we wanted the audience to feel – but not necessarily be presented right in your face — this idea that familiar, Force-strong voices were connecting with her. At least as well as they could.”

“You do hear a little bit of Yoda. You hear Luke yelling out, ‘Nooo!’ from that moment in Empire. And you hear Obi-Wan at the end say, ‘Rey … these are your first steps,’” Abrams shares.

“Here’s the cool part. We asked Ewan McGregor to come in and do the line. And he was awesome and we were very grateful. He was incredibly sweet and handsome, and all that stuff. Then he rode off on his motorcycle. Literally the coolest voice over actor ever.”

Amazing. But it gets better.

As crew worked on compiling the audio and dialogue for the scene, producer Bryan Burk added Obi-Wan saying, “Rey…” but it wasn’t McGregor’s voice, much to Abrams’ amazement.

“I said, ‘That’s cool, is that the thing from Ewan McGregor?’” Abrams recalled. “He said ‘No, we took a line from Alec Guinness saying ‘Afraid.’”

This insight is perhaps the stuff only the mega fans will appreciate, but it’s awesome that little things such as this were worked into the film.

“They cut it, and you hear the performance – he’s saying it the way I would have begged Alec Guinness to have said it. It is so crazy perfect,” beams Abrams. “So when you hear Obi-Wan talk to Rey it is both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor doing the voice.”

It’s probably safe to say that we all love the movie even more now, if that were even possible.

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is in UK cinemas now.

Picture credits: Lucasfilm, Disney