Scottish actor Ewan McGregor, best known for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" franchise, will be portraying both Jesus Christ and the devil in the upcoming movie "Last Days in the Desert" directed by Rodrigo Garcia.
The movie will focus on Jesus' 40-day trial in the desert, where he will encounter a a struggling father (Ciarán Hinds) and his son (Tye Sheridan) in need of guidance.
McGregor tells The New York Daily News that he actually felt overwhelmed portraying Jesus.
"The film is very much about the human side of Jesus, because I don't know how you go about shooting the divine side," McGregor says. "I did quite a bit of research on Jesus going in... reading all these books about who Jesus was and who He wasn't and that wasn't helpful to me."
It was only when he stopped researching about Jesus that he was finally able to grasp the character. "I just started to think about a man who was communicating with his Father, and was frustrated with the lack of response, that's when I found him," he shares.
As for his portrayal of the Devil, McGregor says that the production crew could have gotten someone else to portray the villain in order to avoid controversy. After all, by casting him as both Jesus and the Devil, the movie was suggesting that Jesus and the Devil are mirror images of each other.
But McGregor says that there's a good reason why he played both roles. "It could have been a different actor, it could have been represented by a more classical horned-winged creature," he explains. "But because the devil's role in the story is to mess with Yoshua (Jesus's Hebrew name). How do you not trust the words that seem to be coming out of your own mouth?"
