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Bruised hands, busted knuckles, and memorable bonds: Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reveal how they bonded on Star Wars sets
“We destroyed each other’s fingers,” Ewan McGregor admits
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Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a Jedi? It turns out it involves lots of bruised fingers. Star Wars is known for its memorable lightsaber duels, but filming those sequences comes with some collateral damage. During a panel at SpaceCon San Antonio, Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Ewan McGregor recalled what it was like to film those lightsaber duels.
“The fight scenes with Hayden is sort of what bonded us. Right when we first met, we immediately started fighting together. We started learning. At that time, it was with a guy called Nick Gillard, our stunt coordinator. We started doing fight rehearsals before we did any other kind of rehearsals, because we had so much fighting to learn. That’s something that bonds you together, because you have to be in sync with each other.”
However, part of that bond involved some shared pain.
“When we were fighting in those films, we were using lightsabers that were made of metal. They’re not the plastics that I can see here. So, when you got it wrong and hit each other, you really hurt each other. They used to laugh at us, because by the time we did one take, both of our lightsaber blades were totally bent. We really went after each other.”
This meant lots of broken blades, and plenty of bruised fingers.
“There was a guy whose job was to just rebuild lightsabers. He had a mobile cart. He was just constantly changing the blades on our lightsabers. And that’s something about that, you have to be in sync with each other, or else you’re going to hurt each other.”
“George Lucas in his wisdom decided that in space, in this galaxy, in this time, they don’t have a hilt on the sword. And a hilt on a sword stops your knuckles from being wrapped when the blades slide down. So, we just got our knuckles wrapped over and over again. We both destroyed each other’s fingers. That bonded us together.”
During a separate spotlight panel at the convention, Anakin Skywalker actor Hayden Christensen shared a similar story.
“Every now and then you hit someone on the hand. But the lightsabers now are more forgiving than they used to be. Back when we were doing the prequels, they were just these metal rods. You would hit someone on the hand, or you would get hit on the hand, and it would break your skin. And that doesn’t happen so much anymore. The lightsabers have improved, and they light up now too, which is awesome.”
When asked who got hurt more, himself or McGregor, Hayden said it was too close to call.
“I think we kind of traded back and forth. It was relatively even. It was part of the job. On a masochistic level, it was an enjoyable thing, and you took your marks home and wore them with pride. I earned this.”
This is probably why Han Solo prefers a blaster.
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