Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
Write On with 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Writer-EP Joby Harold
Disney+ is taking us back to a galaxy far, far away with its upcoming limited series Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Ewan McGregor reprising the titular role alongside Hayden Christiansen's Darth Vader. Star Wars superfan Joby Harold explains what drew him to writing the six-episode series for Disney and Lucasfilm: "I always thought [Obi-Wan] was this great, unexplored character when it came to canon because there is that gap between what Ewan had done with the character and what sir Alec Guinness did with the character... I was just, as a fan, eager to see what they were going to do. When I got to sort of be a part of it and figure out what they had done and what they were looking to explore, it just seemed like a really exciting opportunity."
Harold also shares the screenwriting advice that's stuck with him throughout his career: "I had a screenwriting professor named Lou Hunter who would always say at the end of his correspondences, 'Write on' ... and he would say, 'You're not good until your seventh script.' And I was like, 'I appreciate you saying that, but I feel like I've got this figured out. I know what I'm doing,' and it's just crazy to me how true that was, and I think a lot of writers get caught up in rewriting their first or second or third scripts, just trying to complete that first thought... writing and rewriting different projects is so important to finding the vocabulary of writing."