Trading Lightsaber Blows with Obi-Wan Kenobi

Stunts have always had their place in movies, and actors have always had their part to play in making the stunts work for the camera. However, as Ewan McGregor discovered during the shooting of Star Wars: Episode I, lightsaber fighting is quite different from anything else.

McGregor thoroughly enjoyed learning to master the elaborate Jedi fighting style created by Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard, who combined the techniques of Epee, Kendo, and Rapier, throwing in a little influence from tennis and tree chopping for good measure. The result is a truly unique martial art: lightsaber fighting. Practicing was a pleasure to McGregor, and he quickly became comfortable fighting his way through the choreographies carefully penned by Gillard. "It's been quite hard work, but I enjoyed it," McGregor says. "Once you've got it set, it feels really good when you go through a whole fight without having to worry what's next." Rarely stepping down for a stunt double to take his place, McGregor faced the scorching blade of the lightsaber himself. "I did as much of the fighting as I could. I mean, I can't backspin over somebody's head, so someone else did that. But most of the fighting I did. A lot of it."

A lightsaber fight on the set is very different from that same fight on the theatre screen. The high number of digital effects and bluescreen backgrounds prevent the confrontations from being as compelling during shooting as they will ultimately be when computer work is completed, and the real-life fights are left a lot more abstract. Waving a lightsaber at invisible threats - to be digitally inserted later - feels a lot like fighting against air, and it's a skill all its own. "It's got a lot to do with the pace, because it's easy to slow down when you're facing a blue screen," says McGregor. Indeed, things need to keep moving, even if they're not there yet. To this end, Nick Gillard's instructions and advice were of paramount importance.

"There's Liam and me, and we need to deflect all the laser bolts that are flying towards us, and I was just being too vague with it," McGregor recalls, the problem being, of course, that there were no laser bolts to be seen on the set. "Nick kept telling me how important it was to be very sharp and very quick because they would be coming from all over the place, and also that I needed to look at where they were coming from. I waved my lightsaber around, but Nick said my movements needed to follow my eyes, because you have to see the laser bolts before you can block them. So it's a lot about your eyes, and your making everything look sharp and precise. We worked it all out, and it turned out to be just great."

There is one thing, however, that McGregor did regret at the end of a day's fighting: "I wanted a lightsaber that works!," he says, laughing. Judging from the bruises the brave actors sometimes brought back to their quarters at night - not to mention the impressive number of lightsaber props that were wrecked during shooting - it's probably a good thing McGregor didn't get his wish. Otherwise, Obi-Wan might have faced his destiny a few decades early.