Okay, I give up. I'm blaming wistfuljane for forcing me to do this implanting the idea in my head. An overview for the Star Wars RPS fandom. Please, please let me know if I should change anything. Add more people, links, facts. Also, if I've gotten anything wrong please let me know.

So, there are these movies that you've probably heard of: Star Wars. Hopefully you know that it's a series of 6 movies. There's the Original Trilogy (sometimes called the Classic Trilogy or the Imperial Trilogy):

Star Wars IV - A New Hope : Star Wars V - The Empire Strikes Back : Star Wars VI - Return of the Jedi

And the Prequels (aka the Republic Trilogy):

Star Wars I - The Phantom Menace : Star Wars II - Attack of the Clones : Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith

The originals were made in the late 1970s and early 1980s while the prequels have only just been completed. Since this is an overview of the real people who starred in the films, I'll leave the movie explanations up to other people.

The Key Players

Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) imdb


Age: 34
Born: 31 March 1971, Crieff, Scotland

Despite having the accent of an Englishman in the Star Wars films, Ewan is emphatically Scottish. In interviews (at least with Jay Leno) he comes across as being quite impish. He's really into motorbikes (or motorcycles to the americans in the audience) after his first trip round the world (more on that later) he's reportedly thinking about taking another trip straight down from England to Cape Town, South Africa. Ewan has been married to production designer Eve Mavrakis for 8 years. She is French, and they have two daughters, Clara and Esther. Despite the fact that he can't go a single interview without talking about his cock, Ewan's actually quite private about his personal life. And no, that's not a joke. He really does talk about his cock every five minutes. It's quite amusing.

Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) imdb


Age: 24
Born: 19 April 1981, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Hayden has been acting since he was young. He lives both in LA and Toronto. He has 3 siblings, two sisters and an older brother named Tove, who co-produced Shattered Glass, which Hayden starred in. Ewan's not the only exhibitionist-outdoorsmen in the picture; Hayden, Tove, and one of their sisters participated in Eco-Challenge: Fiji Islands in 2002, a hardcore 300 mile race/trek through the wilderness. Ewan got him into motorbikes, Hayden's first ride on one was actually on the back of Ewan's. Now he and his brother go dirtbiking a lot. Hayden has reported that him and Ewan "enjoyed playing with their lightsabers" together. And he's mentioned in interviews recently that he'd like to be an architect.

Natalie Portman (Padmé/Queen Amidala) imdb


Age: 24
Born: 9 June 1981, Jerusalem, Israel

Natalie Portman has been acting since the age of 11. In addition to her acting career Natalie spent 4 years at Harvard studying psychology and graduated in June 2003. Along with Ewan, she has been in all three of the prequels, playing Padmé, Queen of Naboo and then Senator of the Republic.

Other People You'll Probably come Across: (who are not in the movies)

Jude Law (not in the movies) imdb


Age: 32
Born: 29 December 1972, London, England

Okay, you all know who Jude Law is right? Good. So let's just talk about the important stuff. First off: why the fuck is he in all these Star Wars stories? Well, Jude and Ewan are good mates. They lived in an apartment together once along with Johnny Lee Miller. He was named Sexiest Man in the Word in 2004 by People Magazine. At the Oscars Christ Rock mocked him for being overexposed. He used to be married to Sadie Frost; they have 3 children together. And he went through an extremely public break up with her in 2003. He's currently engaged to British actress Sienna Miller (no relation to Johnny Lee Miller). Also, he's taken pictures with Ewan both in bed and in the toilet. They really slash themselves in this fandom.

Ryan Gosling imdb


Age: 24
Born: 12 November 1980, London, Ontario, Canada

A former member of the Mickey Mouse Club, Ryan's adult career has been building steadily over the last few years. He shot a film called Stay with Ewan from September to December 2003, a few months before Ewan's around-the-world motorbike trip. Stay is slated to come out this fall, so I'm sure we can expect more of Ryan in upcoming fics.

Charley Boorman imdb


Age: 38
Born: 23 August 1966, London, England

Ewan and Charley met on the set of The Serpent's Kiss in 1997 and have been close friends ever since. They bonded over their passion for motorbikes and 7 years later they took a trip around the world on their bikes. They traveled East from London, through Europe, then Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia, over to Alaska, Canada and the US ending in New York City. They filmed the entire trip and turned it into a 7 hour long miniseries that aired in the UK and US. The trip took 107 days, from April to July of 2004. There is a mildly evil flash based official website about the trip: longwayround.com

Viggo Mortensen imdb


Age: 46
Born: 20 October 1958, Manhattan, New York

Now Viggo is sort of the exception to the rule here. He hasn't actually been in any movies with Hayden or Ewan. But Viggo is good at being sneaky like that. He has, however, been in a movie or three with Orlando Bloom, who was in Black Hawk Down with Ewan. He and the hobbits (minus Sean) all went to Australia and visited the Attack of the Clones set. Things you ought to know about him. He has a son named Henry with his ex-wife Exene Cervenka, lead singer of punk band X. He's an artist: photography, painting, poetry, whatever the hell else he wants to do. And he's generally reputed to be both brilliant and completely mental.

Okay, I know who they are, now why are they slashy?

First off: lightsaber practice. Not only did they have to get sweaty and physical every day together for months, they did it with the most phallic objects in the universe. And they made noises during it. Hayden has reported that both him and Ewan used to make the little lightsaber wooshing noises as they fought, and George had to tell them to stop fucking up his film.

Secondly, they played the most homoerotic characters ever. Seriously. There was no chemistry between Anakin and Padmé, but put him in a room with Obi-Wan and the sparks fly.

Lastly: they make out with each other at movie premieres:



Need I really say any more?

All right, all right, I'll give it a chance, let me at the fic

Actor resources:

Starwars.com: the official site
theforce.net: the most comprehensive fan website ever (star wars fans are G-E-E-K-Y)
DesiringHayden.net: a very conprehensive fansite, check the galleries and multimedia section for video clips.
Ewanmcgregor.net: very comprehensive video archive, well put together.
Ewan news: an up to date site chockful of news articles and updates about Ewan.

Quotes from the actors on their costars
A master links list of Ewan/Hayden resources

Here are some livejournal communities to start out with:

ewan_hayden: this is probably the biggest community
starwars_slash: accepts both rps and fps
sw_slash: accepts both rps and fps
starwarsbetas: a beta seeking and promotion community, fps and rps
swslash: seems to be only fps