In December 2018, news spread that Ed Sheeran would get one of the many cameos in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Considering it was the final Star Wars movie in the nine-film Skywalker Saga, it wasn't surprising to hear about nine million celebrities landing cameos. However, word spread that he'd be playing one of the stormtroopers. Thankfully, that would hide his face and be less distracting than his infamous OMG It's Ed Sheeran cameo in Game of Thrones.
But no, the official Star Wars account just shared a link to this story highlighting 7 easter eggs fans might have missed in Rise of Skywalker. Most of them were covered already, but the final one simply read "Ed Sheeran Plays This Alien Member Of The Resistance" with this photo:
Who is that dude? No idea. Do you? Every other "easter egg" cameo listed in the Disney story Star Wars linked to had a name -- from Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich playing stormtrooper FN-2802 to composer John Williams as Oma Tres, a Kijimi bartender. (Oma Tres, rearranged, spells Maestro.) There are plenty of other cameos listed, and we knew of most of them -- including Wedge Antilles, who is more than a cameo to me. It also turns out one of the droids in Babu Frik's (voiced by Shirley Henderson) workshop is an old battle droid, as seen in The Phantom Menace.
At the end of the Disney list is the Ed Sheeran easter egg, which shares no details on the character's name or backstory, simply quipping, "We’re in love with the shape of you, Ed Sheeran alien."
Did Ed Sheeran also get to play a stormtrooper -- like Daniel Craig in The Force Awakens and Tom Hardy in a deleted scene from The Last Jedi -- or did he just get to wander around set in a stormtrooper outfit with his helmet off? Star Wars shared a special look behind the scenes before Rise of Skywalker's release, and you can spot a stormtrooper Ed Sheeran at the :50 mark:
I'm not in the habit of caring this much about Ed Sheeran, but I am now mildly curious if he had two Rise of Skywalker cameos or just dressed as a stormtrooper that day for fun/to throw people off. Mark Hamill got to play more than one role in The Rise of Skywalker, but that's Mark Hamill. Maybe Sheeran's stormtrooper cameo was cut?
I would also like to know more about this alien Ed Sheeran supposedly played. The attention to detail looks impressive. If Sheeran hadn't quit Twitter after the GoT backlash, he could've done what Kevin Smith did and shared details on his Rise of Skywalker cameo. I'm glad Sheeran was with the "good guys" this time, instead of playing a singing Lannister soldier like in that distracting Game of Thrones scene. And since he got enough hate for that, it's probably good that he didn't play a stormtrooper -- or a scout trooper like the two famous actors who punched Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian and became The Most Hated People On The Internet.
