'Star Wars Episode 9' May Feature An Ed Sheeran Cameo
According to a new report, superstar singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran has locked down a small part in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Wars: Episode 9. You may recall that Sheeran, already a four-time Grammy Award winner at age 27, cameoed in one of pop culture's biggest properties last year: he showed up on an episode of Game of Thrones playing a Lannister soldier in a scene with Maisie Williams' Arya. (Williams is a big fan, which is why the showrunners brought him on for the cameo.) Now it looks like he's heading to a galaxy far, far away.
Find out what the Ed Sheeran Star Wars cameo may be like, and learn more about his other connections to movie and TV properties below.
The rumor comes from The Sun (via Jedi News), which claims Sheeran will play – you guessed it – a First Order Stormtrooper in the sequel. If this ends up being true, it will put him in the company of people like Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, Prince William, Prince Harry, and composer Michael Giacchino, who have previously suited up to play the faceless soldiers in the new trilogy. Craig appeared on camera in The Force Awakens in this scene opposite Daisy Ridley's Rey, and Giacchino appeared in that film throwing Oscar Isaac's Poe to the ground in Starkiller Base. Hardy and the royals filmed their cameos for The Last Jedi, but their scene ended up being cut from the final version of the movie.
Here's Sheeran's Game of Thrones scene:
Sheeran also has loose ties to another geek-friendly property: he wrote, performed, and produced a song called "I See Fire" for 2013's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which played over the end credits:
On the acting side, Sheeran has appeared in several other movies and TV shows, including five episodes of FX's period piece drama The Bastard Executioner and an episode of The Simpsons. He's played himself in Bridget Jones's Baby and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and this past summer we learned he would also be playing himself in a new Danny Boyle movie that stars Dev Patel as a guy who wakes up one day and realizes he's the only person in the world to remember the Beatles.
"And then I discover him and take him on tour," Sheeran said. "Then he gets much, much bigger than me through doing stuff. Yeah, it's very clever. I got to actually kind of learn how to act... With the 'Game of Thrones' thing, that was literally me popping in for a day and making a cameo. Or 'Bastard Executioner' was me popping in for a day. But this was like full days on set, like full 12-hour days."
Star Wars: Episode 9 hits theaters on December 20, 2019.