Daniel Craig knows a thing about suiting up; he played the famous 007 hero James Bond for fifteen years across five films. But it was another uniform white, plastic, and painfully stiff—that gave him a whole new appreciation for comfort. The actor famously made a blink-and-you-will-miss-it cameo as a Stormtrooper in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but it turns out the experience wasn’t quite as cool behind the scenes as it looked on screen.
Speaking on Radio Andy’s SiriusXM show in a video clip recently posted to the official YouTube channel, Craig was joined by director Rian Johnson to promote their upcoming film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Host Andy Cohen took the opportunity to ask about Craig’s now-legendary uncredited Star Wars role, specifically, how it felt to wear the infamous Stormtrooper armor. Craig didn’t hold back, saying:
It’s basically worn by a lot of stunt men out in the desert, so they do sort of...they don't smell great, and also the sleeves on mine were too long, and it's solid and I couldn't feel my thumb for a week. But otherwise it was great.
Craig’s deadpan delivery and sarcasm didn’t hide the fact that the costume was, in a word, miserable. Rian Johnson, who directed The Last Jedi, chimed in to confirm the reality of Stormtrooper cosplay:
Everyone wants to be a Stormtrooper until they put on that uniform. It’s not comfortable.
The Knives Out star also revealed how the whole cameo came together casually and under the radar. He recounted:
We didn’t tell anybody, we just did it. I was prepping for… I don’t know which Bond, but I was prepping for Bond, and they were shooting. J.J. [Abrams] was shooting. And I know one of the ADs, and he was working on the movie, and I said, ‘Surely there’s… surely.’ And they said, ‘Yep! Let’s do it.’ So I did it. I did a morning shoot.
When the host asked whether the experience was exciting, Craig offered another laugh. Deadpanning, he responded:
No… [laughing] No, it was great.
Though uncredited and anonymous behind a helmet, Craig’s cameo became one of the more beloved Easter eggs in The Force Awakens. Fans eventually recognized his voice as the Stormtrooper in one of the best Rey moments when the trooper is Jedi mind-tricked by Daisy Ridley’s character, cementing the moment as a viral piece of Star Wars trivia.
These days, Daniel Craig is swapping out Stormtrooper helmets for a more refined look—trench coats, Southern drawls, and plenty of murder. He’s returning as detective Benoit Blanc in the third installment in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series, set for a 2025 movie release. This time around, the mystery is promised to be darker than the last two, but also more faithful to classic whodunit structure, something longtime mystery fans have been craving. Johnson described the setup as being closer to the traditional Agatha Christie model.
Craig plays opposite Josh O’Connor, who steps into the role of the film’s central character, much like Ana de Armas did in Knives Out. While Glass Onion leaned into a flashy, layered deconstruction of the genre, Wake Up Dead Man seems poised to test whether audiences, and Blanc himself, can crack the case with only the clues provided. With early screenings already generating buzz, Craig appears to be heading into one of his most compelling performances yet.
Wake Up Dead Man will have a limited theatrical release on November 26, 2025, followed by a streaming release on December 12, 2025. All you need is a Netflix subscription to enjoy the next Knives Out film
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