'Obi-Wan Kenobi' actor Ewan McGregor says he found it 'difficult' filming 'Star Wars' prequels because he spent 'a lot of time' alone

• "Obi-Wan Kenobi" star Ewan McGregor had to adapt to new film technology in "Attack of the Clones."
• McGregor found it "difficult" because he wasn't used to green screens and digital cameras.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi" star Ewan McGregor said that he found it "very difficult" filming the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy because of the visual effects being pioneered by director George Lucas.

McGregor returns as the titular character in the upcoming Disney+ series. However, he first played Obi-Wan in the prequels in the late '90s and early 2000s, for which Lucas used advanced visual effects to depict the space setting and aliens in the movies.

However, McGregor said during a roundtable interview attended by Insider that the new technology meant he spent "a lot of time" on his own because the aliens were added later.

"The original three films were just very difficult to make because the time George was pioneering ILM, his visual effects company, and he was at the forefront of that technology," the 51-year-old actor said. "As he pushed into that space he wanted to utilize it as much as possible, which meant that he wanted to create more and more of the backgrounds."

He continued: "So for us, that meant that we were more and more on green screen or blue screen sets, and it was just difficult to do that."

McGregor said it was especially difficult in the second movie, "Attack of the Clones," because his character spends most of the movie separate from humanoid aliens as he is chased by a bounty hunter.

"[In] Episode II, I spent a lot of time off on my own and on this planet with tall aliens, and of course, none of that was there," McGregor said. "For me, it was, like, a long time walking around blue sets speaking to tennis balls and sticks and it was just not what I was used to, and it was hard to make. Hopefully, we made it realistic and we did the best we could."

During a press conference for "Obi-Wan Kenobi," McGregor further admitted that "Attack of the Clones" was his "first experience" shooting on a digital camera. He also said that he had to re-record every line from the film because of a humming sound coming from a big tent near the stage.

"It was so noisy and in post-production, they realized at the end, that the noise they made was exactly in the frequency of the human voice," McGregor recalled. "So we had to ADR every single line of 'Episode II.' None of the original dialogue made it through because of that because the cameras were so new and none of the bugs had been worked out yet."

Earlier this month, McGregor told Vanity Fair for its June cover story that he found it "difficult" to finish the prequel movies after seeing the criticism of the first movie "The Phantom Menace."

During the press conference for "Obi-Wan Kenobi," McGregor said his feelings about the prequels "warmed" after hearing that fans loved the movies.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi" premieres on Disney+ on May 27.