Kumail Nanjiani’s Role in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ on Disney+, Explained
**Spoilers for Obi-Wan Kenobi episodes 1 and 2 lie within**
Obi-Wan Kenobi released its first two episodes on Disney+, and with that comes a lot more information about characters and actors we know are in the series, including that of Eternals star Kumail Nanjiani’s role. Nanjiani plays Haja Estree, a “Jedi” who is helping people for a fee—except here, “Jedi” is code for grifter who is pretending to use the Force to help people get off planet for a price. Obi-Wan goes to see him when he’s searching for Leia and, in doing so, sees his tricks and instantly knows that he’s not someone who is actually a Jedi, but isn’t to be trusted. To Haja Estree’s credit, he’s not not helping people. He’s just pretending he’s more important than anyone else so that he can try to get more money from them.
But what’s so great about Haja Estree is that he is a good person in the end. When Obi-Wan is facing off against a droid after Leia runs off from him, Haja Estree tells Leia and Obi-Wan where they can get safe passage off planet and that he’ll buy them time. And he does just that. Reva catches him and forces him (literally) to divulge the information on the real Jedi’s whereabouts, but he is true to his word for Obi-Wan.
It would have been so easy for him to give up Obi-Wan and Leia and take the reward, which is what it seemed like he was going to do. But instead, he tried to protect the two of them and helped them escape as best he could. I don’t think that’s the last we’ll see of Haja Estree, but having Kumail Nanjiani in the world of Star Wars was well worth it either way! And he’s incredible in the second episode of the series as he pretends to use the force as we all know we would with the right technology.
(image: Jesse Grant/Getty Images)
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