Now that the latest Skywalker trilogy has come and gone, John Boyega can finally be candid about his experience working on Star Wars. The actor, who played Finn in the billion-dollar series, made a series of revelations in a searing interview with British GQ, speaking frankly about how racism marred his time spent in a galaxy far, far away.
“What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side,” Boyega said. “It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”
Star Wars: The Force Awakens played up Finn as a major driving force of the narrative. But the following two films gave more space to Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), sidelining Finn. Boyega addressed that in the interview, noting, “You guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver.” However, he continued, the franchise’s gatekeepers failed to give that same attention and care to Boyega, as well as costars like Naomi Ackie, who is also Black; Oscar Isaac, who is Guatemalan and Cuban-American; and Kelly Marie Tran, who is Vietnamese-American. Tran in particular dealt with such severe racist harassment that she ended up leaving social media and writing an essay about her ordeal.
“You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know, fuck all,” Boyega continued. “So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”
As the franchise carried on, Boyega slowly became more vocal, pushing back against Star Wars fans and trolls alike. In early June he delivered a powerful speech about racism at a London rally held in solidarity with Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd. The impassioned speech quickly went viral, prompting Lucasfilm to issue a statement in support of Boyega: “You are our hero,” said the company. But some Star Wars fans were quick to point out the irony of those words, considering how the company treated the rollout of his character—including removing or shrinking Finn’s presence on international posters and staying silent when Boyega’s casting inspired racist hashtags like #BoycottStarWarsVII.
Boyega acknowledged the boycotts directly, saying he was “the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race.… It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realize, I got given this opportunity, but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.
“Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it],” he continued. “Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and Black that and you shouldn’t be a stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”
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