Ewan McGregor was honored Thursday with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and his Star Wars prequels and Obi-Wan Kenobi co-star Hayden Christensen didn’t let a little dismembering stop him from praising his “dear friend.”
Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker, the student of McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, recalled first meeting the Scottish actor and “coolest person on the planet” on the set of 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
“[H]e exclaims my name with more enthusiasm than I think I’d ever heard it spoken with before,” Christensen reminisced. “He just gives me the biggest hug. Like, just the most disarmingly warm embrace.”
He “immediately” knew he was “meeting someone truly special … and that I was meeting a friend.”
He deadpanned, “A friend who would later go on to chop off both my legs and leave me for dead on the side of a volcano, but I guess I kind of had that coming,” drawing a huge laugh from McGregor and the assembled crowd.
At the climax of 2005’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Kenobi dismembered Anakin in a lightsaber duel after his student turned to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader.
Christensen closed by calling McGregor the “best Jedi Master ever,” saying, “It’s been an honor and a thrill to get to work with you, and swing a lightsaber with you, and … call you my friend. I love you, brother.”
The pair embraced after the tribute.
McGregor said he was touched that his star — the 2,789th such plaque — was mere feet from that of another Star Wars legend. “I’m so moved that I’m close to my old friend Carrie Fisher,” he said. “That means a great deal to me too.”
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