+Belated Media i almost choked up watching star wars force awakens when boyega and isaac make their getaway "Good to meet you Poe good to meet you too Finn" that good natured atmosphere is what SW is all about
My grandparents were born in England and this is the way English people are ... Even if they love something they complain about things ... True story ...
theninjararar .... Good people .... Just loved to complain about stuff... Even there English friends that came to visit ... Again good people but they have there English way about them... And it's not just because they were old.. It's a cultural thing .. Kinda like having Tea in the afternoon ...
***** I too think he didn't hate the movie but the negative effect its popularity had on his career, as he didn't want to be typecast and didn't want people to just think of him as Obi-Wan from this big Hollywood blockbuster (unfortunately that's what many people still do) and completely ignore his long and distinguished career in which he played many different characters (in some really good films), some of them definitely more sophisticated or demanding than playing Obi-Wan, but nobody seems to talk about them. Remembering Alex Guinness just for playing Obi-Wan is a bit like only thinking of Alfred in the Dark Knight trilogy when thinking of Michael Caine - in both cases (fairly) good successful big budget movies, well played parts but definitely not the highlights of their careers.
U.N. Owen ... Good point ... He really is tied to that character.... The movie was just SOOOOO popular and still is today... Kinda like Mark Hamill ... Man every time I saw him in another movie I was like, Luke Skywalker!!..... lol
+David Duarte He did like Star Wars, but he didn't want it to be the only thing he was remembered for in a very long and distinguished career in film, theatre and television. I can understand that. This is my favourite tv interview with Sir Alec Guinness, it was from the golden age of chat shows and Michael Parkinson really was one of the best in the business.
This was great, thanks for posting. Alec Guinness is one of the all time best actors in our time, to see this interview shortly after the release of Star Wars is a treat beyond measure. To hear him speak on the movie shows how intelligent, classy and graceful he was. To me he will always be Obi Wan.
Thank you for your comment. It's great to hear that there's still so much love for Alec Guinness. I was thrilled to find this clip and had to share it!
I had the chance to meet the man at the very end of his life... It is so weird to read the comments from people who know nothing about him and his career. Sir Alec never hated really Star Wars during the time he made the movies; in fact, his problems with the movies came way later on, and it mostly came from intrusives fans. For most of his life, the man was living a quiet life of an old actor, with his name on the directory, living a simple quiet life most of the time, with his little house... And then, he found himself harrassed on the phone, finding fans sleeping in his garden, some entering on his house by the window to get some "memorabilia", getting surrounded by fans of Star Wars when he was trying to do his grocery shopping or just taking a walk... A lots of peoples can't even understand what it is to become part of that kind of phenomenon, especially for an old man who previously won a couple of Oscars, was known all around the world but who also was living a quite quiet simple life... until the mid 80's where things really got out of control for him! At the end of his life, it was even worst because Internet really brought that to another level, with peoples sharing his private address, phone number, etc etc etc...
He didn't dislike Star Wars. He disliked being asked about it all the time. He was eternally grateful for what George Lucas did for him. But think about it. When you've had a forty year career and then everyone keeps asking about Obi Wan, you're gonna be a little vexed.
Harrison helps as well, but it is as Alec said. A marvelous healthy innocence the first one was. But you are right John Williams and Alec were instrumental in bringing Star Wars to life. Without them it wouldn't have been the same.
+ChooseReason It's also the only good things about the prequels, John Williams and Ewan McGregor nailing the part as Obi Wan Kenobi doing justice to Alec Guinnes.
There is before Star Wars... and there is after Star Wars... simple as that...A seminal film... My childhood was perfectly framed by this film.. regards all true fans ;)...
It is so funny listening to the older interviewers of that time interviewing the cast. They had no freaking idea what made Star Wars a phenomenon and quite frankly neither did Sir Alec. They sound like my parents back then. Years later my mom said, "You know, we never understood the appeal of Star Wars but I guess you were onto something by liking it.
It's so surreal seeing a video where Star Wars was this new shiny thing, a time before Star Wars is so foreign to me, it's like teenagers today trying to imagine a time without the internet, I just can't imagine a time where Star Wars wasn't known.
I was born about four years before the prequels came out. But honestly, I can't remember a time when I didn't know about the original trilogy. It's one of those things that's always been in my life. So to picture a time when Star Wars wasn't in pop culture, that my parents lived in a time when Star Wars didn't exist, it seems so alien to me.
Even though he may have not liked his experience with the films, he was a class act in this interview and praised it for the public. A true class act indeed!!
What a class act. Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing, those two fine actors brought a touch of class to A New Hope. Lucas was so lucky to have had them on board. Thank goodness he chose Elstree and not LA.
+MeTube Agreed. Also I cans see that you're into notable filming locations as I am as well. Elstree is truly awesome place to shoot in Britain, as well as the once bustling sets of Pine Wood Studios as well, too.
Brandon Mr. Rockabilly I loved the use of Greenham Common in Episode VII. I grew up seeing with the protests, good to see the site being put to better use than storing weapons of mass destruction.
It's a great piece of film history and took me back to my childhood. I'm a huge fan of Sir Alec Guinness and was lucky enough to have met him several times through my early and teenage years. He was a wonderful actor and much missed.
Thank you so much for sharing this. The impression one gets these days in hindsight is that Sir Alec resented Star Wars as it seemed to take over from the rest of his catalogue and it was all people wanted to talk about. There are plenty of stories about how he grew to detest the Star Wars movies and could not understand the fascination with them. That may (or may not) be true, but it is good to see this at a stage where he seemed to actually like them and the 'breath of fresh air' they brought to cinema in the late '70's. As it turned out, seeing Sir Alec in this film brought his earlier work to my attention as I hope it did with many others. He was an amazing actor with an astoundingly diverse range. I loved him as Obi Wan, but he was so much more as well.
Back then, the world kept its manners, & they would respect an actor who could quite literally act out any emotion for any part, role, character, lead or otherwise. This man wrote the book, & set the standard that all actors still struggle to match today. You can tell if you look closely that Alec is relating subjects in his lines to real trials of his life. There isn't a single part of you that doesn't believe what he is saying is anything but the truth. It is a very awkward profession - acting out conflict within yourself. Which is why he put on a stern countenance & proclaimed ignorance off camera/stage. But he wasn't stupid. He knew his real personality was gobbled up by the vivid characters of Star Wars. And he must of hated that fact; Not Star Wars itself.. as he states here.. he really enjoyed it. But there's always a price to pay. And I pay my respects to Alec Guinness. Not Obi-Wan. To the man, Alec Guinness.
I think it was hard for people who lived long lives to cope with the amount of change that occurred during the 20th Century. The difference between his early career and the phenomenon of Star Wars is unbelievable.
Amazing to step back in time for a moment to a time when SW was still brand new. And good for AG that he was well paid for a film he obviously wasn't mad for. too bad that he doesn't seem to acknowledge how important he was to its success.
Notice how Alec said he had some issues with the dialogue and wanted to meet Lucas so he could make some changes. Perhaps Alec is why the first two movies were so awesome. Honestly, if you think about the lines from those movies some of the best ones include Alec Guinness.
He was spread successful. He'd been acting for over 40 years, had several hits, including Bridge on the River Kwai. He was an old school actor, having started as a Shakespearean actor. The reason he never seemed grateful to the role in Star Wars is that he felt, as many older actors would, that he'd had better roles, but he was only remembered for this one. I imagine it was frustrating.
I love it when OG actors/resses in huge pop-corn blockbusters, just like the very regretted AG and most recently, Robert Redford in Cap America 2 or Michael Douglas in Ant-Man.
Was Star Wars his 'best known' role? Yes. Why? Major success of the franchise. People forget though, that Alec took this role well into his life and with all the work from his career, sci-fi was a completely new thing for him. I am not surprised that he approached it the way he did, sci-fi was new and crazy and potentially dangerous ground for an actor back then. He was set in his ways, he's entitled to that. He was a great actor. Re-watching him in star wars when I'm in my 30's reiterates just how good he was. He played the character perfectly. A true professional at work.
1977, I was 9 yr old... Brought up on Thunderbirds & TV presenters with posh-accents... I love drawing spaceships with pencils and blowing up old AirFix models with any fireworks I could get hold of... then all of Star Wars happened and changed me and you and the world... for ever, I remember the very first time I saw any of the film, it was on Film 77 with Barry Norman and for some reason it was the afternoon if I remember and it was on the telly and then boom... we got the Tie Fighter scene in the Falcon, the gun ports and catchphrases and music and sound effects and then it ending with C3PO saying "Help I think I'm melting..." then R2D2's chirps to the Millennium Falcons engines fading into the distance and I was changed there and then... soon as I saw it I ran into the kitchen where I saw my dad and I said.. Star Wars gotta see it, film... dad money give me want to go now STAR WARS.... then some days or weeks later I was there in an old cinema in my old home town and it just blew my head off... I mean it was the 1970s and for me it was holidays to Blackpool and flares and playing with toys etc... then after Star Wars I became more creative, spurned my imagination to the point earthly pursuits seemed utterly boring... so many years later I accidentally invented a new system of propulsion which will carry man to the stars and beyond... ha I WISH...! no, I went full-dweeb... didn't go bald though... which was nice...
+Kevin Beswick Besides the Star Wars movies, I've only seem him in four other films. Murder by Death, Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and Raise the Titanic.
Alec Was I think the Christopher Lee of our time very talented British actor who never saw himself doing sci-fi but did so well with the character that he did paved the way for other British actors obi-wan will forever be a part of all of my generations lives!
i don't know for sure how he felt later in life, but he is positive in this interview because it was for publicity for the film. film just came out and stars go on these shows to promote it
I think obsessive fans were also a reason that Sir Alec turned his back on Star Wars. While he (along with other actors) thought the script was garbage, no one could deny the finished result onscreen.
+SlashMan.EXE Absolutely. He was not just a Star Wars actor. What a wonderful film careers he had beyond Star Wars. That is the fact which has to be acknowledged.
+SlashMan.EXE To be fair he didn't say the script was 'garbage', he said the dialogue was 'ropey'.He actually enjoyed reading the script at first and that's why he took the job.
+caveman Versace True, but Guinness made the decision to sign up for this "fairytale rubbish" film, and knew that it would not be a low profile film. I'm sure the price was right obviously, but as a testament to his character, he did act with the utmost sincerity, despite the low regard he had for the film.
I'd love to see the script before, and after, his alterations. Might shed some light on why every SW film since has been so clunky/weak in that department.
Alec Guinness brought so much prestige and dignity to the role in the original films. He seems to have a very good sense of humor too. It's great to see clips like this to remind of the day when talk shows like Tom Snyder was cool.
For the UK, Parkinson, Russell Harty (and even Wogan) were the very best of interviewers on chat shows. This was back in the 'golden age' of the chat show, when the guest was allowed time to talk about their life/project. Now they are shoved onto a sofa and squeezed alongside some vacuous boy band, given two mins and the host doesn't even listen to what they are saying because he's waiting to throw in a lame joke.
UKToyCollector1977 I recall a number of years ago when horror author Clive Barker was on the David Letterman show here in the States. And he wasn't even given ten minutes at the end of the show. Still ol' Clive stole the show with his fantastic, and funny, story relating to visiting the morgue. Though I'm certain that if Clive Barker appeared on a show like Graham Norton's in England, he would have been given more air time. Norton is a rare exception in today's talk shows. I do miss people like Tom Synder from the 70s and early 80s. Not all talk shows were good in the old days... Morton Downey Jr.'s show was a travesty back in yesteryear.
This one kid asked Guinness for an autograph, claiming he had watched Star Wars over hundred times. Guinness told the kid that he would give him the autograph, on one condition: that the kid would never ever watch Star Wars again.
Pastor Seung-Hui Cho IIRC, the kid bursted into tears and the mother chastised Guinness, saying: "What a dreadful thing to say to a child!" Guinness commented much later: "Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities."
+Jaakko Keskinen When someone acts like an asshole and tells themself they were doing it for the good of the other person... just always rubs me the wrong way. Don't get me wrong I love Alec Guinness' performance in Star Wars, but he still acted like an asshole in that specific instance. He should have just owned up to the fact later instead of giving a defensive, lying to himself, answer *decades* later. He didn't "educate" or "better" that child with his comment. Guinness was just sick of Star Wars himself and projecting those feelings whilst trying to justify/dress it up as something more noble than just that.
As michael said to alec you have hit the jackpot with this one. Too right he did! That two percent urned into $20,000,000 and that was back in 1977!!!!!
"Your uncle is afraid you'll follow old Obi Wan on some damn foolish idealistic crusade like your father did" I wish George Lucas would have read the actual dialogue from SW before he started on the prequels, they would have been a lot more interesting and would have matched better with the original. This line from Obi Wan does not match with any events from any of the prequels. It implies that Obi Wan and Anakin were contemporaries, not master and padawan as is portrayed in the movies, that Obi Wan came to Tatoween and convinced Anakin to go on an adventure, which resulted in him learning about the force (at a later age, not as a child) and ultimately being consumed by it. THATS a movie I would have wanted to see. Frankly if the new SW movies use the prequels as Cannon, they'll simply collapse under the weight of trying to explain away all the inconsistencies between the two trilogies.
they are equals for the majority of the clone wars ,the original trilogy gives almost no insight into the jedi ,the republic or what things were like before the rise of them empire so of cause people fill in the large amount of blanks themselves so when the prequals came along things are going to be mostly different to what they imagined, this is a fault with the original trilogy not the prequals
banethesithari he and about 50 others were involved, there was no master plan, it was simply a work in progress and Lucas personally fucked it up in the prequels because he just didnt give a shit.
5:40 "No sleazy sex. In fact, actually no sex at all when it comes to that..." Did Alec Guinness accidentally predict the sterile, sexless, aromantic tone of everyone in the prequels?
+liveFinalFantasy Funny considering the entire prequel trilogy revolves around Anakin and Padme's romantic plot... Based around a love story (mixed with betrayal) at its core and yet it STILL came across as sterile, sexless and aromantic. That's almost like an accomplishment in how bad that is.
+Deathbrewer Truly. You nailed it. Especially Episode II's any potential romance killing, totally shit-house dialogue of super creepy stalkerish "Haunted by the kiss you never should have given me" bull corn.
I am aware he didn't like Star Wars much (I think he said he liked the strong "Good vs. Evil" sense it had compared with other modern movies at the time), and he didn't want anything to do with it after the first, but what got him to do his parts in 5 and 6? As far as I am aware, there was no contract binding him as Lucas didn't even know if the 1st would even work out.
I was always quite irritated by Alec's attitude towards Star Wars. Although he seems positive during this interview, his remarks about the entire experience in later years were negative and ungrateful. I say ungrateful because before Star Wars he had just finished a minor comedy - with a relatively minor role - in America. I think it was called Murder By Death. To look down on a film that not only brought him back to international status, but also left him a very wealthy man in his difficult old age is just bad form.
Well he wasn´t in any other film franchise other than Star Wars. He was, however, the star of Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, The Lady Killers, Bridge over the River Kwai just to name a few, all major movies that still get regular Prime Time television showings. And he was knighted for acting in 1959. The idea that he is only famous for Star Wars is just bizarre.
A number of Original Trilogy cast members like Alec Guinness and Harrison Ford would go on to be sick of Star Wars and in Harrison Ford's case specifically sick of Han Solo; it's amazing how much he doesn't like the character. Funny enough both of them strongly criticized the dialog with Harrison Ford saying "You can write shit, but you can't speak shit" and Alec Guinness saying he was sick of people asking him to repeat "those banal lines". With the exception of Jake Loyd most of the Prequel Trilogy cast came out feeling good about the experience including Natalie Portman who even claimed it almost killed her career. I guess the difference is the OT cast didn't really go into the first movie expecting it to be a big success while the PT cast(with the likely exception of Jake Loyd) knew what they were getting themselves into.
+Sebastian Gomez Yeah I just came from a screening of the film. I _LOVED_ it myself personally, but yeah ***SPOILER ALERT***: He got his cinematic wish in which he actually in private quietly asked Lucas & Kasden about on the Episode V (Empire) set, feeling that at the time Solo with no real wife & kids and no siblings had "the least about of anything to lose in dying" or something to that effect.
Whoa, truly? But yeah I plan to re-see the film. I truly think its the best of the whole franchise cannon since my birth year's _Return of the Jedi_ from '83. Loved it. I can also see why Lucas recently exclaimed only "Well, the hardened Star Wars fans are going to love ti, as its a film they've waited for over a decade", since its basically a film he wouldn't have made without over forty minutes-plus of neo political talk mixed in with wooden performances & his creepy/Episode II molded super stalkerish Anaikin dialogue of some awfully written shit of "being haunted by the kiss you never should have given me", or some crap. I can see why he probably already shall despise the on-going Sequel Trilogy as many of us are calling it; and while I'll continue to love 'em as well :D By yeah it was certainly a "lump in the throat" moment to see him go out so suddenly, even if many of us saw it coming.
Chef Larom Yeah, like Adam said, I think the main issue he had was not so much with Star Wars itself as with the fact that after starring in it no-one ever remembered his other great roles, such as for ex. several awesome Dickens adaptations.
I wonder what sir Alec Guinness would say if he were still alive to see what star wars became. I'm not just talking about the prequels but also the Clone Wars tv show (the second one) and the Expanded Universe.
It is one of my favorite movie stories that this marvelous actor and old workhorse somehow new that taking a percentage on this nonsense would pay off. I believe Robert Shaw tried to do the same on 'Jaws' but was unsuccessful.
Where did he say he hated it? Did you listen to it? He said he LIKED it.... Later on he started to hate only being asked about Star Wars, but that has nothing to do with if he liked the movie.
Actually no, he didnt like it. Know your facts, do some research. He said it was space mumbo jumbo junk, but the money would be enough to get through the year. He though it was embarrasing to eve read his lines and he agreed to play on the condition he would be paid double, plus not having to advertise or promote the movie himself. Oh and obi wan's death? His idea, cause he didnt want further involvement with the project.. I know, sounds tough but it's just how it is man:/ BTW here you are www.google.gr/search?newwindow=1&safe=off&site=&source=hp&q=did+alec+guinness+like+star+wars&oq=Did+alec+guinness&gs_l=hp.1.1.0l3j0i30l2j0i5i30l5.208068.215337.0.216650.16.15.0.1.1.0.284.1556.1j9j1.11.0....0...1c.1.38.hp..6.10.1127.0.QapsWtcYXYc
Nick Chatziioannidis Did you watch the interview? Did you hear what he said? He said it was good. What part of the interview did you watch where he said he didn't like it? Just because he suggested that he died because he didn't want to do another one, which BTW, he did do THREE more, doesn't mean he didn't like the movie. He did LATER got annoyed for only being identified with Star Wars.... but that is a different story.. know YOUR facts...
gold95 He isn't saying that Alec states it in the interview, he said it later. Also he only did two more, three movies in total and I'm sure he only did it for the money.
System509 Absoutely... he was already world-renowned and an actor of the highest ability and repute. He positively made the film. What would Star Wars have been without Obi-Wan... and I mean Sir Alec's version of him only! One of the true greats.
I always thought Alec Guinness disliked Star Wars, after he told that one kid who loved it that "He should get a better taste in movies", but it seems like he liked it here. Did he change his mind later?
