In the interview with THR’s Ryan Parker, actor Laurie Goode gave a blow-by-blow account of the head-bonk seen around the world, and painted a picture of a busy set with lots of moving parts and stormtroopers. Evidently, other folks cracked their noggins on doors and whatnot, but Goode’s knock was the only one that made the final cut.
And I say he earned it because he very nearly made a much nastier accident in his stormtrooper suit. Per Goode:
“On the second day of filming, I developed an upset stomach. By midmorning I had paid three to four visits to the loo/bathroom. Having re-dressed myself and returned to the set, I felt the need to rush back to the gents’ toilets, but I was placed in [the] shot. On about the fourth take, as I shuffled along, I felt my stomach rumbling, and ‘bang,’ I hit my head! As I wasn’t moving too fast, it was more of a scuffed bash, so it didn’t hurt, but as no one shouted ‘cut,’ I thought the shot wasn’t wide enough for me to be in frame.”
Goode’s bowels evidently held fire, which spared the costuming department a clean-up job for the ages. Post-“Star Wars,” the actor landed bit parts in “For Your Eyes Only” and “An American Werewolf in London,” but he never scored a breakout role. Though he kept busy as an actor, and eventually got into screenwriting, his career, as far as fanboys are concerned, peaked with that Imperial owie.