Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!
Chosen One of the Day: George Lucas watching Ewan McGregor get a haircut
I know. It is a creator’s job to be involved in every step of a process. They should care! All the things are important! That said, there is a minute and a half clip — and no, I do not want further context — of George Lucas watching Ewan McGregor get his hair cut for The Phantom Menace.
There are so many things about this video that I love. I think Ewan is coming in with his Iggy Pop/Velvet Goldmine haircut, he and George stand (backs to the camera) greeting the hair and makeup artists. “And you are?” a woman’s voice asks.
“Ewan,” he answers.
“Who are you gonna be for the —”
“Ah, the young Obi-Wan I think.” As if he doesn’t know. “I hope.”
Through all of this, barring hellos, Lucas has been mostly silent, watching.
There’s some trepidation in the clip. “Are we ready?” Ewan asks. “Are we sure this isn’t all a terrible mistake?”
He’s got the timbre of a young actor who has just started to realize what he’s gotten himself into.
The whole video is so weird. There’s nothing flashy or “behind the scenes” about it, we see all the awkwardness of strangers having to interact in an intimate position — at one point, Ewan makes a joke, but the hairdresser can’t hear him over the buzzing of the clippers and it falls real flat.
I love every uncomfortable, strange second of it. Who recorded this? Why did they upload it?
Lucas mostly is… just watching a woman buzz off Ewan McGregor’s hair. “It’s nice that it stands up,” he says, after Ewan has called his Scottish hair “really good and thick.”
I didn’t write this, I’m just pointing out facts.
Our main man Georgie does drop some interesting information while he’s standing there, though! He gets into how to balance the real and the unreal in these fantastical movies — and oh, I’m distracting by the lady braiding a four-inch section of hair she’s left on the side of Ewan’s hair.
OK but really, Ewan started this out with two padawan braids! … It is not a good look and I’m glad they stuck to one.
