Entertainment
One Star Wars Actor Hated Every Second of His Fan-Favorite Role
For millions of Star Wars fans, Obi-Wan Kenobi represents wisdom, calm, and the moral center of the original trilogy. He is the mentor archetype perfected. Part samurai master, part space wizard, part philosophical guide leading Luke Skywalker toward his destiny. Without him, Star Wars simply would not feel the same. Ironically, the man who made the character iconic never fully understood the obsession.
Sir Alec Guinness had a famously complicated relationship with the role that made him recognizable to generations of moviegoers. While Star Wars made him extraordinarily wealthy and introduced him to the largest audience of his career, it also became the role he spent decades trying to separate himself from. But the real story is not just that Guinness disliked Star Wars, it is why his presence in the film was so important in the first place. Because without Guinness, Star Wars might not have worked the way it did.
Guinness Helped Make Star Wars Feel Legitimate
When Star Wars released in 1977, it was far from guaranteed to become the cultural phenomenon it is today. Science fiction was not widely considered prestige filmmaking, and the genre often struggled to be taken seriously aside from a few exceptions. George Lucas understood this, which is part of why casting Guinness mattered so much. Guinness was an Academy Award winner for The Bridge on the River Kwai, known for serious dramatic work and classical stage performances. His presence alone signaled that Star Wars was trying to be more than just spectacle. More importantly, he treated the role with complete sincerity.
Rather than leaning into the pulpy nature of the material, Guinness approached Obi-Wan like a classical mentor figure. He delivered exposition about the Force and the Jedi with the quiet confidence of someone discussing philosophy rather than fantasy. His performance gives the impression that this galaxy has a real history instead of just invented lore. That choice helped audiences accept the film’s mythology. It is easy to imagine a version of Star Wars where Obi-Wan feels campy or overly theatrical. In the wrong hands, the character could have felt like a stock fantasy wizard. Guinness instead gave him restraint, sadness, and a sense of lived experience. He made Obi-Wan feel like someone who had already lived through a lost golden age. That emotional grounding helped make the entire story feel more real.
Guinness’ Performance Grounded the Film’s Biggest Ideas
One of Guinness’ greatest contributions to Star Wars is how he handles the film’s most difficult material. Much of A New Hope depends on the audience accepting abstract ideas like the Force, the fall of the Jedi, and the moral battle between light and dark. Guinness makes those ideas believable simply through how seriously he takes them. The calm conviction in his delivery gives the idea emotional credibility. It turns what could have been technobabble into something closer to mythology.
His famous sacrifice on the Death Star works for the same reason. Guinness plays the moment with quiet acceptance rather than dramatic spectacle. Obi-Wan does not die like an action hero, he dies like someone fulfilling a purpose he has already accepted. That performance choice reinforces the idea that Star Wars is operating on mythic storytelling rules rather than simple adventure logic. Without that tone, the moment risks feeling confusing or anticlimactic. Instead, it becomes one of the most important turning points in the trilogy. It also helped establish one of the franchise’s most important storytelling ideas. In Star Wars, victory does not always come from power. Sometimes it comes from belief and sacrifice. Guinness communicates that theme through performance more than dialogue. That may be his most important contribution to the film.
Guinness Never Loved What Obi-Wan Became
Despite how essential his performance was, Guinness never fully embraced the role. Unlike many actors who later grow tired of their most famous characters, Guinness had doubts from the beginning. He reportedly struggled with some of the dialogue and was unsure how the film would be received. While he respected Lucas’ ambition, he did not share the same excitement for the genre. His decision to join the film was partly practical. His contract included a percentage of the film’s backend profits, estimated at around 2.25 percent, which ultimately earned him millions as Star Wars became a global success.
Financially, it was one of the smartest decisions he ever made. Artistically, it was more complicated. Guinness spent decades building a reputation as a transformative actor known for his range. After Star Wars, he increasingly found himself defined by a single role. In his memoir A Positively Final Appearance, he recalled throwing away Obi-Wan fan mail without reading it. One frequently repeated story describes him agreeing to sign an autograph for a young fan only if the boy promised to stop watching Star Wars. These stories may sound harsh, but they reflect a real fear: Guinness worried that his most popular role would overshadow the rest of his career. In some ways, he was right. But there is also a deep irony here. The qualities Guinness valued most as an actor are exactly what made Obi-Wan so beloved. His restraint, discipline, and seriousness helped elevate the film beyond simple genre entertainment. His commitment to treating the story seriously is what helped make it timeless.
Whether he liked it or not, he became part of cinematic mythology through Obi-Wan, and in the end, that may be the clearest measure of his impact. Guinness did not just play Obi-Wan Kenobi: he helped convince audiences that Star Wars was worth believing in, even if he never fully understood why they believed in it so much.
- Created by
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George Lucas
- First TV Show
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Star Wars The Clone Wars
- Latest TV Show
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The Acolyte
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During the Wednesday, April 1, episode of the hit NBC series, Dr. Charles (Oliver Platt) has a difficult day when he tries to help someone who calls into the suicide hotline. The man reveals he’s holding a gun before disconnecting. With the case sent over to emergency services, Dr. Charles can’t follow up.
He then has a fight with his daughter, is accused of a patient of letting his emotional issues affect his work, got an official complaint raised again him and considering another job after an argument with Goodwin.
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If there’s one thing Dick Wolf isn’t afraid of, it’s killing off a beloved character. A fact that fans of the One Chicago universe know all too well. The franchise kicked off in 2012 with Chicago Fire. Chicago P.D. was added in 2014 and Chicago Med debuted in 2015. The cast of each show has […]
One Chicago fans have gotten used to seeing their favorite characters come and go from Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago P.D. over the years. After there were some questions about the franchise’s revolving door of cast members, NBC’s president of program planning Jeff Bader explained why he wasn’t concerned.
“Cast comes in, cast goes out,” Bader told TVLine in an interview published in July 2024. “It’s interesting. Because every year there are cast changes, and every year someone asks the same question about what’s going on within the One Chicago universe. But [those shows] just keep going on.”
Bader pointed out that each of the Chicago shows have continued to find success, adding, “We’re thrilled with how the Chicagos do on Wednesday. We have no plans on changing anything on that night.”
Elsewhere in the One Chicago universe, Dermot Mulroney surprised fans by departing Chicago Fire — for now.
A March episode of the hit NBC series showed Pascal having his position revoked after he previously disobeyed a federal agent’s order to stand down while collecting evidence at a house fire. Pascal was arrested, but despite the federal charges against him being dropped, his position was still in jeopardy.
Pascal ultimately confirmed to Firehouse 51 that he was told to vacate the position effective immediately. Amid the big professional change, Pascal considered retiring from firefighting but then shared that a former colleague in Phoenix offered to connect him with a firehouse in Arizona. It remained unclear what choice Pascal would make about his future.
“He’s been on the ropes,” Chicago Fire showrunner Andrea Newman told NBC Insider. “[The arrest] puts him in a situation, it’s kind of a journey for him from the beginning, where he really wasn’t connected to 51 as closely as the chiefs obviously we’ve seen in the past, like Boden.”
Newman continued: “So he makes the ultimate sacrifice for his team, for all the teams really in this episode, and it sends him in a totally different and new direction at the end here. And he’s gonna have to figure out if he’s going to fight and claw to get back to 51, or if he’s now going to be on a new path altogether.”
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Sometimes Hollywood knows exactly what old flick needs an update. Sometimes, they get it oh so wrong. Thumbs up or down on these remakes and reboots?
Be sure to sign in and track your day-to-day progress. Don’t forget that you can try today’s TV Quiz if you’re in the mood for another challenge, and you’ll always find all of our current and archived quizzes here.
Tomorrow, we’re going to wrap up the week with the MGM classic, The Wizard of Oz, so be sure to come back for that.
For today’s movie challenge, we’re looking at remakes and reboots. Whether we asked for them or not, these movies put a new spin on an existing story. It’s all about thoroughly monetizing that IP, baby! Scroll down for our feature presentation.
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Howie Mandel doubles down on awkward semi-apology after snapping at Mark Consuelos, Kelly Ripa on air
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Mandel said it’s “up to you to discern” whether or not his apology video was genuine, after he snapped at Ripa and Consuelos on “Live With Kelly and Mark.”
Howie Mandel has admitted that he has mixed feelings about apologizing to Kelly Ripa after their awkward interview on Live with Kelly and Mark.
“If somebody is offended [or] if somebody feels that I did wrong, then I apologize,” Mandel said on the Tuesday, March 31, episode of the “Hot Mics with Billy Bush” podcast. “I don’t believe in apologizing but, as I said in my post, which I kinda regret making the post, I don’t think you should apologize for a joke.”
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When Consuelos interjected that Mandel looked “great,” the comedian shot back, “I [do] look great. That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
The America’s Got Talent judge complained that he doesn’t like people commenting on his age because it always comes as “a caveat.”
“Because you tell someone you’re 70 and they go, ‘You look great,” he added.
Ripa tried to clarify that she wasn’t trying to say Mandel looked “great for 70,” before he interrupted again to declare, “It’s like saying you’re smart for a stupid person. ‘Oh, you look smart! You seem smart!’ I don’t look good.”
Mandel added later in the conversation, “Well, actually, before we go out, there’s, like, a mirror back there. … Honestly, now, I’ll be serious for a minute: I’m gorgeous. I am. I am.”
“You’re a thing of beauty,” Ripa quipped.
Howie Mandel in January 2025. Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The awkward interview clip quickly went viral, leading to Mandel making a public apology for the awkward moment a few days later.
“I have been debating for 48 hours whether I should make this post or not, and I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” he said via Instagram on Saturday, March 28. “Philosophically, I don’t believe that somebody who’s a comedian needs to apologize for a joke. It is a joke, it is meant as a joke, and it’s not meant to offend.”
Mandel pointed out, “You can not like it and, in all my years in the business, I haven’t ever publicly apologized for [a joke].”
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Entertainment
30 Years Later, the Greatest Horror Saga Ever Told Is Officially Dominating Streaming Again
The era of the once mighty slasher film has fallen on hard times. Grief-fueled horror films are all the rage, with only a few bastions of the subgenre remaining. How quickly viewers forget the seeds of the genre that celebrated blood and guts. The only slasher franchise that truly remains is Scream, the iconic series of films from the late horror director Wes Craven.
Premiering in 1996, the first Scream film was a fresh take on a trend that seemed to have lost its luster. The film starred Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, a new final girl for the modern era. In the town of Woodsboro, a killer in a Ghostface mask terrorizes high school students in an entertaining and meta take on the genre. Scream deconstructed these horror tropes and laid out the rules for surviving a horror film. The franchise was so successful that it outlived Craven. Now, after the seventh entry of the Scream series, it has found life again on Tubi.
‘Scream’ Fans Can Revisit Ghostface on Streaming
Scream has endured for so long because it was unlike any other horror franchise at the time. In the ‘90s, slashers like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees had lost their charm. It was time for a new take on the subject, and there was no one better to address this than Wes Craven. With the help of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, who wrote zippy lines and witticisms, Scream became a smash success.
The first Scream film threw out the hallmarks of the past. Instead of one killer, there were two, and their motives were incidental. While Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) blamed his murder spree on his mother leaving after Maureen Prescott’s affair with his father, it was really an excuse. Co-killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) cited peer pressure as his reason for the crimes. This was a tongue-in-cheek way to acknowledge that killers didn’t need a motive to be truly heinous.
Scream set up a theme that reoccurred in the following two films of the trilogy, offering red herrings and horror cameos to drive the point home that this was not the typical franchise. The meta take on the genre continued to take on a life of its own. Just like Ghostface, Scream continues to return and only rarely disappoints.
Scream 4 was a surprise, premiering a decade after the previous film. Craven proved he had not lost his touch as the film was ahead of its time. Featuring a new cast of teenagers, the fourth film in the franchise notes the dangers of influencer culture in an extremely underrated entry. Now, 30 years after the first film, Scream remains a nostalgic pleasure for fans. Michael Myers can be a one-note killer, but Scream continues to prove it is the best of the best because it always reinvents itself.
There are, of course, no comparisons to the originals, but there is always room to deconstruct the horror genre in a new meta take. Viewers can relive the brutal kills and classic one-liners by catching the franchise on its new home, Tubi.
- Release Date
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December 20, 1996
- Runtime
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112 minutes
- Writers
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Kevin Williamson
- Producers
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Bob Weinstein, Cary Woods, Cathy Konrad, Harvey Weinstein
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Rebel Wilson Gets Candid About Never Getting A Bikini Body
The “Senior Year” actress did not sugarcoat where she’s at recently with her fitness, admitting she may never look a certain way.
Taking to Instagram Stories, Wilson shared a photo of herself in a sports bra and shorts, confidently showing her midsection while embracing her reality in the caption.
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Wilson also chimed in on her use of medication to support slimming down, writing, “But let’s face it, I love sweets – so I need those GLPs [sic] from time to time to give a little help.”
The ‘Pitch Perfect’ Star Turned To GLP-1 For Weight Loss
Wilson’s latest update comes about six months after she revealed she was considering GLP-1 medications as part of her weight management plan.
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How Rebel Wilson’s ‘Year of Health’ Reshaped Her Career
Throughout her transformation, Wilson has been an open book. In 2020, embarked on a strict routine, famously dubbed her “year of health,” shedding nearly 80 pounds in the process.
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Rebel Wilson Spoke Out Amid Legal Battle
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