George Lucas 'Told Off' The Thursday Murder Club Star Celia Imrie For Wearing Lipstick While Filming Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, As Actress Admits She Didn't Have a Clue About the Movie's Plot

British acting fable Celie Imrie, prima of The Thursday Murder Club, has recalled the clip she cameoed arsenic a Naboo combatant aviator successful Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and got told disconnected by manager George Lucas for wearing lipstick.

Imrie, possibly amended known for her roles successful a slew of different films specified arsenic the Bridget Jones series, Nanny McPhee and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, besides appeared successful the archetypal Star Wars prequel. Keep a keen oculus retired and you'll spot her successful the movie's last conflict sequence, piloting a yellowish Naboo starfighter with the telephone motion of Bravo Five.

"This is 1 of the astir fashionable parts I tin ever speech about," Imrie said successful a BAFTA interview, "especially successful America and particularly with young gentlemen, who can't judge I was Bravo Five successful Star Wars."

Celia Imrie arsenic Bravo Five successful Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, without lipstick. (Image credit: Lucasfilm)

"Extraordinarily, 1 time I was doing a precise superior play with the great, precocious Harold Pinter, and the casting manager [for Star Wars Episode 1] was sitting successful the assemblage successful the matinée," Imrie recalled. "He took 1 look astatine maine successful my nightie and thought 'she'd marque a bully Star Wars pilot'."

Much of Star Wars Episode 1's conflict series was changeable utilizing greenish screen, thing that does not look to person helped Imrie's knowing of what was really going connected during her comparatively abbreviated clip connected set.

"As a Star Wars combatant pilot, I ne'er knew who I shot, whether I won, oregon whether I came backmost to Earth successful an aeroplane oregon not," Imrie admitted. "I hadn't got a hint what the crippled was. My yellowish aeroplane was connected a basal truthful I was benignant of, similar 1 of those fairground ones, rocked astir each implicit the place. I did a batch of diving successful my goggles and everything, and looked precise fierce. And I got told disconnected by George Lucas for wearing lipstick. But seeing arsenic I was the lone woman pilot, I thought, wherefore not?"

In the wider Star Wars universe, Imrie's quality has a afloat sanction — Dineé Ellberger — and happily is confirmed to person survived the events of the archetypal film. Other details connected Brave Five's aboriginal beingness stay scarce, however.

Imrie is presently starring successful Netflix deed The Thursday Murder Club alongside Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley, successful a relation that requires a batch little greenish surface and nary request for spacecraft goggles.

In different caller interviews, The Thursday Murder Club manager Chris Columbus has said helium was fired from 20th Century Fox’s archetypal Fantastic Four movie aft suggesting conception creation should consciousness much similar the Silver Age of Marvel, and ruled retired immoderate accidental of Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson reuniting arsenic their characters successful the future.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social