James Bond: Daniel Craig on his Star Wars cameo – ‘Everyone started hating on me’ | Films | Entertainment
Back in 2015, Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy kicked off with Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Harrison Ford’s Han Solo and Carrie Fisher’s Leia returned over three decades on from their last outing Return of the Jedi, while the previously unknown Daisy Ridley starred as the mysterious scavenger Rey. When the box office smash hit cinemas, fans started to realise there was a major cameo from Daniel Craig as a stormtrooper.
The Force Awakens scene in question saw Rey captured and bound for interrogation by the First Order on Starkiller Base. However, she managed to escape by using a Jedi mind trick to control a stormtrooper and let her escape.
The guard numbered FN-1824 – although fans nicknamed Craig’s cameo JB-007 – isn’t taken immediately telling her: “I’ll tighten those restraints, scavenger scum.”
However, it wasn’t long before the Bond star under the helmet repeated back to her: “I will loosen these restraints and leave the cell with the door open.” Which he does before dropping his weapon and saying “Aaaand I’ll drop my weapon.
Around the release of No Time To Die last year, Craig took part in a special BAFTA programme hosted by Edith Bowman.
On his Star Wars cameo, he said: “I think we were doing Spectre, and all of our crew were on Star Wars. Ben Dixon, who was our seconding [Second Assistant Director], a great lovely man Ben Dixon, he was on seconding and I kind of went to, I had to go into Pinewood to, I don’t know what I had to go to Pinewood for, to do some fitting or something. And I said to Ben, I said, ‘Part for me?’. And he was like, ‘Are you serious?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he went, ‘I’ll go ask JJ’. And he came back and said, ‘Yeah.’
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As rumours sprouted of his Star Wars cameo, Craig had to play it coy, but this somewhat backfired for the Bond star.
He said: “I kind of went and said, ‘No f***ing way was I in Star Wars.’ I mean, I thought I was great to kind of play around with that and everybody kind of started hating on me ’cause I sort of said I didn’t like Star Wars and I just was like, ‘Oh it was so stupid.'” It wasn’t long before everyone spotted him, including The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, who’d had a cameo in Rogue One himself.
Craig added: “But it was amazing and I’m in the movie and Rian says when he saw the movie the first thing he did afterwards was he said, ‘Who was that f***ing stormtrooper?’ He said he knew it was somebody, whatever. It’s the way I walk, clearly.”
