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Ewan McGregor’s uncle tried to persuade the actor not to sign up for Star Wars, because he didn’t have a great experience in the first three movies.

Denis Lawson portrayed Wedge Antilles in A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but didn’t have the best time on set – and when his nephew was offered the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Lawson urged him to pass.

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“My uncle is in all three of those original films… and he’d always been pretty dismissive of it, because he did a couple of weeks’ work, sitting in a cardboard spaceship in Elstree (studios), or whatever they shot them in London, and yet he had this massive following – and it sort of annoyed him.

“He was one of the people who said, ‘Don’t do it!’”

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But Ewan ignored his uncle’s advice and went on to appear as the Star Wars Jedi sage in three Star Wars films.

“The nearer I got to it, the more I wanted to do it,” he tells Today. “I’m so glad I did, because it’s so interesting to be part of that.”

McGregor will reprise his Obi-Wan Kenobi character for an upcoming spinoff Star Wars series for streaming site Disney+.