Imagine being paid $95 million for just a few days of work on a movie—where you’re on screen for only 20 minutes! That’s what happened to British actor Alec Guinness almost 50 years ago. Most actors would do anything for such a big paycheck, but Guinness wasn’t very excited about the film at first.
In the mid-1970s, Guinness was already famous. He starred in many great movies like Kind Hearts and Coronets and Bridge on the River Kwai, for which he won an Oscar. Then, director George Lucas reached out to him for a new space movie. At first, Lucas offered him $150,000 to play a wise character named Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Guinness asked for double that amount and a percentage of the movie’s profits. Lucas agreed, giving him 2.25% of the earnings.
The movie was Star Wars, which became a huge hit! Even though Obi-Wan only appeared for a short time, Guinness made a fortune from the film. Over the years, Star Wars made billions of dollars, earning Guinness $95 million by the time he passed away in 2000.
However, Guinness did not like Star Wars when he first read the script. He thought it was “fairy tale rubbish” and only took the job for the money. He even wrote in his diary that filming felt dull. But when the movie became a blockbuster, he decided to come back for a sequel, saying he owed it to George Lucas. He said yes to a day of work on The Empire Strikes Back, but he still thought it was dull!
In the sequel, Obi-Wan’s character was killed off. Later, Obi-Wan was brought back in the prequel trilogy, played by Ewan McGregor. Then, just this year, McGregor returned in a web series called Kenobi, which is on Disney+. Interestingly, Alec Guinness earned more for just 20 minutes of screen time across two movies than McGregor did for three films and a series!
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