Willie Coppen

Willie Coppen is a British actor. He played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi, where he was credited as William Coppen.

Coppen was around eighteen or nineteen years old, working at a car spares shop in a suburb of Derby, when a regular customer called to tell him about a radio ad announcing that the next Star Wars movie was looking for dwarfs or small adults. When Coppen phoned the agent who had put out the ad and explained that he was 4'4", the agent was relieved, as many previous phone calls had come from people as tall as 5'2".

All of Coppen's scenes were filmed at the Ewok village at Elstree Studios. While filming, Coppen and his fellow Ewok actors only wore full costumes when the cameras were rolling, due to the heat. During one cooling break, Harrison Ford cooled Coppen down with a fan. Coppen enjoyed his time on set and was delighted to meet other people his size, as he had only met one other similarly-sized person to him before in his life.

Coppen went on to appear in other major films such as The NeverEnding Story and Willow. He is a founding member of the Dwarf Sports Association UK, and he has competed in swimming in the World Dwarf Games six times.

Text and facts from the “Willie Coppen” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.