As soon as it was announced that Hayden Christensen would be joining the cast of Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was obviously no secret that Darth Vader would appear. What was kept a secret, for some reason, was just who would voice the Sith Lord. James Earl Jones voiced Darth Vader in Star Wars and went on to reprise the role in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Rogue One, and The Rise of Skywalker. He also voiced the character in several episodes of Star Wars: Rebels.
While it was naturally assumed that James Earl Jones would once again voice Darth Vader in Obi-Wan Kenobi, other people have voiced the character in the past and the producers weren’t talking, so anything was possible. Thankfully, it has now been confirmed that James Earl Jones is voicing Darth Vader, and if you’ve watched the latest episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’ll hear Jones’ distinctive voice once again. Even at 91 years old, the actor’s voice is just as powerful as it was all those years ago. With three more episodes to go, we’ll likely be hearing more from Darth Vader.
“Bringing back Vader [is] obviously something you don’t want to do lightly, and you don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it,” Obi-Wan Kenobi director Deborah Chow previously told TVLine. “When we started really looking at Obi-Wan’s life and saying, ‘Who’s important in his life? What in his past has affected him?’ so much of that connects back to Anakin that it just felt very organic that it would be part of this series from where we’re coming out in the history.“
The Obi-Wan Kenobi series begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Revenge of the Sith where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as the evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. The first three episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are now streaming on Disney+. Check out a review from our own Alex Maidy right here.