You know how it goes: you go to work, you do your bit, you… become emotionally attached to a camel. OK, so clearly that depends on your line of work – but for Ewan McGregor, it’s where he found himself while making his long-awaited Star Wars comeback in Obi-Wan Kenobi. The upcoming Disney+ series sees McGregor step back into his Jedi robes for the first time in 17 years, telling a whole new story set in the interim between Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope – one that begins with him where we last left him, on the sands of Tattooine and keeping a watchful eye on the young Luke Skywalker. While the show finds Obi-Wan living a solitary life, he is, at least, joined by his trusty Eopie – the ‘snoot-horse’ desert creature that previously popped up in the prequels.
Here, that role was taken on by a camel named Silas, who became a firm friend of his human co-star. “I really, really liked him,” McGregor tells Empire. “I don’t know how Silas felt about me. I had a great trainer who called me ‘Cowboy’ all the time. ‘Come on, Cowboy!’ It’s nice for a Scottish person to be called Cowboy all day. Silas, he’s brilliant.” Working with the camel was a far cry from the digital effects used for the Eopie on the prequels. “When I deliver Luke to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on Tatooine at the very end of Episode III, I was riding a fucking blue gym horse,” laughs McGregor. “I had to just sit on it and pretend to be [rocks from side to side]. I had mates there – ‘It’s a big moment, come on set, we’ll watch the last [scene]…’ And there’s a blue gym horse. I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’ I had to pretend to lope in on it, take the baby over, and then get back on the other way around.”
McGregor’s connection with Silas was so strong, he nearly considered bringing him home. “The trainer could see that I really liked the camel, and he said, ‘He’s almost finished his career. He’s 20-something years old, and we’re looking for a forever home for him’,” recalls McGregor. “I was like, ‘Oh, don’t tell me that.’ I’ll come home with a camel like, ‘Hey, guys! We can have a camel in the garden can’t we?’” Here’s hoping their friendship doesn’t go the same way as Obi-Wan and Anakin’s, eh?
Read Empire’s full Obi-Wan Kenobi interview with Ewan McGregor – talking the changing reception to the prequels, his evolving relationship with the character, and reuniting with Hayden Christensen – in the Summer Preview issue, on sale Thursday 12 May and available to pre-order online here. Obi-Wan Kenobi starts streaming on Disney+ from 27 May.