’s Moses Ingram revealed that she was warned that her starring role in the upcoming Disney Plus series would spark racist backlash online.
The new show will see and reprise their roles from the prequel films, as Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker respectively, the latter of whom went on to become the dreaded Darth Vader.
Moses joins the cast as Reva, a Force-sensitive Inquisitor who’s working under Darth Vader’s rule.
However, the 29-year-old actress expressed that her involvement in the spin-off led her to prepare for the worst.
‘Obi-Wan is going to bring the most diversity I think we’ve ever seen in the galaxy before,’ she said.
‘To me, it’s long overdue. If you’ve got talking droids and aliens, but no people of colour, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s 2022, you know.
‘It was something that Lucasfilm actually got in front of, and said, “this is a thing that, unfortunately, likely will happen. But we are here to help you; you can let us know when it happens,”‘ she added to .
Moses recently expressed how important it was for her character
The Queen’s Gambit star thanked director Deborah Chow for ‘welcoming me in and carrying about my thoughts in terms of who Reva might be’.
‘Deb was so great about hearing me out on that and that’s how we ended up with the braids. It was really important for me to do what my hair does.’
The actor emphasised that ‘the hair was a big deal’, before also explaining how much it means to be playing a strong female character that young girls can look up to.
Aside from Ewan as Obi-Wan and Hayden as Anakin/Darth Vader, other members include the aforementioned Joel Edgerton as Uncle Owen, Bonnie Piesse as Beru Whitesun Lars, Owen’s wife and Luke aunt, and Grant Feely appears as the young Luke.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres on Friday May 27 on Disney Plus.