John Boyega: Star Wars knew “f**k all” what to do with characters of color

John Boyega lays out his issues with the Star Wars sequels. “They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest.”

Since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker closed out Disney’s sequel trilogy last year, John Boyega (Finn) has been more than willing to speak his mind about what the experience was like, on set and in the fandom. He’s pushed back against criticism of the movie, engaged with shippers, and indicated that he wasn’t wild about The Last Jedi, the middle chapter of the trilogy. He also drew a lot of support, including from Disney itself, for speaking out for the Black Lives Matter movement.

But Boyega has never been content to toe the company line. In a new interview with British GQ, he opens up further about his frustrations with the studio, with Star Wars fans, and more.

“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race,” Boyega said. “Let’s just leave it like that. 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]. 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."

Boyega has been fighting against racist fans who didn’t want him in the part from very early on in the process. And once he had the role, Boyega had issues with how the trilogy handled his character. “[W]hat 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,” he said. “It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

"Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley (Rey), you knew what to do with Adam Driver (Kylo Ren). 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 f**k all. 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."

Boyega makes clear that he’s not just talking about his own character here, or Tran’s, but also Naomi Ackie’s Jannah and Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron (“a brother from Guatemala”). He also called for people to lay off J.J. Abrams, who received a lot of blowback for making The Rise of Skywalker. “Everybody needs to leave my boy alone,” Boyega said. “He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your s**t.”

You can next see Boyega in the Steve McQueen anthology series Small Axe, coming to BBC One and Amazon Prime Video later this month.

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h/t The A.V. Club