The Stormtrooper Who Banged His Head in "Star Wars"

It was only a split second shot in the most famous space movie of all time. A stormtrooper follows his commander through a corridor and bangs his head against the ceiling. It was a moment that actor Laurie Goode thought would be edited out, but it wasn't. When Star Wars was released in 1977, so many people watched it so many times that he became anonymously famous.

I remember after the first two takes, we were told to hold our guns in our left hands as opposed to our right. So I believe the head bang happened on the fourth take — whatever number of takes we did, the head bang happened on the last take. When it first happened, that day I told my fellow actor on the film, Mark Kirby, that I hit my head, but we didn't go for another take.

Afterward, nobody believed him when he said he was that stormtrooper. It turns out that quite a few people claimed to be the one. He even wrote a song about it. Goode tells the whole story of what happened on that day of filming and why he wasn't quite on his mark in an interview at The Hollywood Reporter.