Daniel Craig's Secret Cameo in 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Revealed (SPOILERS)

Gwynne Watkins
·Writer, Yahoo Entertainment
image

Warning: The Force Awakens spoilers below.

Did Daniel Craig defeat SPECTRE only to join the First Order? Turns out that rumors of a Craig cameo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens are true — and if you’ve seen the film, you’ll be delighted to learn which baddie he plays. (So stop reading if you haven’t seen the movie!)

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the James Bond actor plays a Stormtrooper in a pivotal (and very funny) Force Awakens scene. At one point, heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) is taken captive by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who believes he can use the Force to extract some top-secret information from her brain. When Kylo leaves the room, she attempts to use the Force herself, to escape from the Stormtrooper who is guarding her. The scene is an homage to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s “Jedi mind trick” from A New Hope (“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” remember?) And, according to EW, the trooper is none other than Craig.

image

Daniel Craig at the London premiere of ‘SPECTRE’ (Joel Ryan/Invision/AP, File)

What makes this piece of news especially fun is how adamantly Craig denied it while promoting SPECTRE this summer. Even though Simon Pegg (who also has a Force Awakens cameo) spilled the beans to the London Sun — and SPECTRE was filming concurrently with The Force Awakens at London’s Pinewood studios, giving Craig ample opportunities to drop by — Craig insisted that the report was rubbish. “Why would I ever bother doing something like that?” he snapped at EW in July. “F—ing hell! Pffft. Play an extra in another movie?”

Related: Read our complete ‘Star Wars’ coverage

Craig wasn’t the only star lured into a minor Force Awakens role, though he is the biggest: Scream Queens actress Billie Lourd (daughter of Carrie Fisher) plays a Resistance member, 30 Rock comedian Judah Friedlander is a bar patron, and comic actors Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz contributed to the voice of BB-8.

Watch the ‘Force Awakens’ cast demonstrate how to play with their action figures: