Warning: Spoilers ahead for the plot of A Gentleman in Moscow.
A Gentleman in Moscow is Ewan McGregor’s first TV show since his 2022 Star Wars spinoff, and the characters he plays in each respective project have eerily similar experiences. As the leader of the cast of A Gentleman in Moscow, McGregor plays a Russian ex-bureaucrat called Alexander Rostov, sentenced to life imprisonment within the walls of Moscow’s Metropol Hotel. In Star Wars, McGregor took over the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi from Alec Guinness when the prequel trilogy began in 1999. On the surface, Alexander and Obi-Wan seem nothing alike, but as A Gentleman in Moscow progresses, the similarities become apparent.
A Gentleman in Moscow is a historical drama set around the time of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, and Star Wars is an epic space opera that blends science-fiction and fantasy. As such, it’s difficult to compare the two stories. That being said, there are a few facets that connect the two that go beyond Ewan McGregor’s presence in each of them. However, McGregor starring in both does highlight the narrative parallels a great deal.
2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi TV show sees Ewan McGregor reprise the role of the titular Jedi for the first time since 2005’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The story is built upon Kenobi rescuing and caring for a young Princess Leia Organa – the daughter of his late apprentice and friend, Anakin Skywalker. In A Gentleman in Moscow, Alexander befriends a young girl called Nina Kulikova during his unconventional incarceration, and she grows up and has a daughter of her own, called Sofia. Nina flees the country a few years later, leaving Sofia in Alexander’s care.
It’s later revealed to the audience that Nina dies in Siberia, which only enhances the comparison of the guardian roles of Alexander and Obi-Wan. What is arguably the main difference is that Alexander, sadly and inarguably, outlives Nina. In Obi-Wan Kenobi, McGregor’s character only believes his old friend to be dead, but later discovers that Anakin lives on in the form of Darth Vader. However, as confirmed by Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale, the masked villain also considers the persona of Anakin Skywalker to be gone.
Alexander Rostov’s connection to Obi-Wan Kenobi exceeds their shared role of generational caretaker. Alexander’s imprisonment is due to being a member of Russia’s defunct ruling class, with many of his peers having already been executed for the same crime as a result of the nation’s violent political shift. As such, Alexander is one of only a few surviving members of the Russian bureaucracy.
Obi-Wan’s story is very similar, as at the time of his 2022 Star Wars spinoff show, Master Kenobi is one of only a handful of remaining Jedi throughout the galaxy, with almost all of his kind slaughtered due to Order 66 a decade earlier. So, A Gentleman in Moscow‘s Alexander Rostov and Ewan McGregor’s Star Wars character become even more closely related when their backgrounds are taken into account.