A lot – a lot – went down in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. So much so that you might not have noticed a few of the familiar faces who appeared in the movie, from big-name directors, to secret stars, to, well, like half the minor cast of Game of Thrones. Here are a few of the people that made cameos, and where to spot them.
Edgar Wright took to Twitter today to reveal his own cameo, alongside his brother Oscar, Attack the Block director Joe Cornish, and longtime Wright collaborator Leo Thompson as Resistance soldiers in the group’s tattered last stand on Crait:
If you are looking for my cameo in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ this is my grubby Resistance costume. With big brother Oscar, Joe Cornish & Leo Thompson. Shot this cameo on June 23rd, 2016. Thanks to @rianjohnson for making it happen. pic.twitter.com/WHpxu29Z6I
— edgarwright (@edgarwright) December 18, 2017
Rogue One director Gareth Edwards also made his appearance there:
Image: StarWars.com
Edwards is seen looking incredibly befuddled to the left of a Resistance soldier who licks the salt on the surface of Crait (who, I kid you not, is named “Sergeant ‘Salty’ Sharp’” in The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary) before the battle. The director’s appearance was payback from Rian Johnson, as Edwards allowed him a brief cameo in Rogue One as an Imperial technician.
Image: Topps
One cameo that was often talked about in the run up to the Last Jedi was that of frequent Rian Johnson collaborator Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who’s appeared in roles across Johnson’s entire filmography. Star Wars is no different, but Levitt may have been challenging to spot for even the most eagle-eyed fan: He’s the Abednedo that protests to the Canto Bight Police Department over Rose and Finn’s crash-landed shuttlepod on the beach of the city. Named “Slowen Lo” by The Visual Dictionary, the alien has a few close up shots and some lines, but you’ll have to listen extra close to make out that it’s Gordon-Levitt.
Image: Empire
There’s also bittersweet cameo came in the form of Gary, the beloved dog of the dearly missed Carrie Fisher. Confirmed by Johnson ahead of the film, the pup played an alien dog in the casino scenes on Canto Bight – you can see him to the left of this picture of Finn and Rose, released through Empire Magazine, above. But while that is very delightful, temper it with the total despair of learning that when Gary saw the film (to carefully review his own performance, of course), he perked up every time his departed owner appeared on screen. Why is it suddenly so misty in here?
Images: HBO and BBC.
Speaking of Canto Bight, another of the film’s oddest blink-and-you’ll miss cameos comes in the form of Justin Theroux, whose character should have played a major role. He’s the human known as the “Master Codebreaker” that Maz sends Finn and Rose to track down so they can disable the First Order’s hyperspace tracker, glimpsed only briefly before the Resistance duo find themselves under arrest. You might also have recognised the Master Codebreaker’s fabulously square-haired accomplice in the scene as well, referred to in the Visual Dictionary only as “Lovey” — she was played by Lily Cole, who also played a freaky ghost siren in the Doctor Who season six episode “The Curse of the Black Spot.”
Less specific this time is the fact that seemingly half of Westeros showed up as members of the First Order. Honestly, these are less cameos and more proof that the UK-based production of both The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens led to several actors from Thrones simply being cast in the film (Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played Jojen Reeed on GoT, was in The Force Awakens as a First Order deck officer, for example), but it’s kind of hilarious to play “guess that Game of Thrones character” with the villains.
Images: HBO
The Last Jedi features Kate Dickie – Thrones‘ demented Lysa Arryn, Catelyn Stark’s sister – on the bridge of the Finalizer talking to General Hux in the opening of the film. When Finn and Rose get caught by the First Order trying to disable the hyperspace tracking device, they’re arrested by First Order Security Bureau Colonel Ansiv Garmuth, played by Ralph Ineson, a.k.a. Dagmer Cleftjaw, one of Theon’s Ironborn raiders at Winterfell in Thrones‘ second season. We go even more obscure for Captain Canady, the officer in charge of the Fulminatrix, the ill-fated Dreadnought destroyed in the battle over D’Qar. He’s played by Mark Lewis Jones in The Last Jedi, who played Shagga, Son of Dolf in Game of Thrones, the hill tribesman Tyrion cuts a lucky deal with when he’s captured fleeing the Vale of Arryn way back in season one.
Finally, a quartet of famous cameos may not have even made it into the movie altogether: British princes Harry and William, alongside Take That popstar Gary Barlow and actor Tom Hardy, were meant to play Stormtroopers in scenes set aboard Supreme Leader Snoke’s flagship, the Supremacy. John Boyega initially told press that the princes had been cut from the film, but then representatives for the actor confirmed to the Daily Mail that Boyega was joking about the cut. So, somewhere among those helmeted sea of Stormtroopers is the world’s unlikeliest quartet.
There’s plenty more cameos to be found in The Last Jedi – Vanity Fair has a good roundup, including a bonus role for Mark Hamill, and Star Wars stalwart Warwick Davis’ Canto Bight appearance – but which ones did you notice? Let us know in the comments!