Princes William and Harry get royal casting call for ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’

A big Star Wars secret is out and actor John Boyega has spilled it: Prince William and Prince Harry will appear in The Last Jedi, due Dec. 15 — only you won’t know it because they’re playing First Order Stormtroopers in signature face-obscuring helmets. 

Spoiler alert: Pay attention to any scene in an elevator.

Boyega, who plays reformed Stormtrooper Finn in the movie (in theaters Dec. 15), confirmed that he shared a scene with the royal pair “wrapped in Stormtroopers costumes,” during the taping of an interview for The Hollywood Reporter. 

THR also reported Friday that Will, Harry, British actor Tom Hardy and singer Gary Barlow appear together as Stormtroopers in the same scene, guarding Boyega’s character in an elevator, “surely making it Star Wars’ most secretly star-studded sequence of all time.”

Boyega joked that sharing a scene with this posse (Hardy and Barlow are pals of the princes) made for a “strange contrast of a weird family.”

“It’s the best of both worlds for me,” Boyega said, calling it a “great” experience.

Officially, of course, Kensington Palace was polite but a tad frosty when asked to comment. 

“This has been reported off and on for a year and we haven’t commented,” said the princes’ top spokesman, Jason Knauf, in an email to USA TODAY. 

But assuming Boyega had his facts right — how did this happen? And when?
Apparently, it was set up when the royals paid an official visit to the Pinewood Studios set of The Last Jedi outside London in April 2016. At the time, there were rumors they filmed a scene in disguise, but the pictures from the visit show them dressed in their usual sports jackets and slacks, goofing off with the cast, playing with lightsabers, hugging Chewbacca and posing for pictures.

Hobnobbing with the stars on a movie set is one of the perks of being royal; Will and Harry, plus Will’s wife, Duchess Kate of Cambridge, have also visited Harry Potter sets in recent years. Queen Elizabeth II even visited the Belfast set of Game of Thrones but declined the chance to sit atop the Iron Throne.

Besides, movies are a major British cultural export, and royals are always keen to promote Britain’s economic interests. The princes checked out production workshops and met the creative teams working behind the scenes on the Star Wars films.

- USA Today