Oscar Isaac reads a letter from his Star Wars forebear Sir Alec Guinness

When Alec Guinness wrote this letter to his dear friend, Anne Kaufman, in April 1976, and spoke so enthusiastically about his new play, Yahoo , he was known to most as a very dependable Academy Award-winning actor who regularly starred in the films of David Lean, the acclaimed English director of such classics as Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. However, it’s the upcoming role to which he briefly but so amusingly alludes in this otherwise unremarkable letter – the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, a film that boasted “rubbish dialogue” and a co-star momentarily named Tennyson Ford – that went on to introduce him to a far larger audience of avid fans, and which ultimately brought him huge financial reward. At Letters Live in March 2016 at London's Freemason's Hall, Oscar Isaac joined us to read his Star Wars forebear's letter.