Star Wars Star John Boyega Slams Disney’s Treatment of Diverse Characters: ‘It’s Not Good. I’ll Say it Straight Up’
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images
John Boyega revealed the difficulties he faced while working on Star Wars as a Black man during an interview with British GQ — faulting Disney for pushing his character aside after marketing him “to be much more important in the franchise than” he was.
Boyega’s character Finn was immediately considered controversial, and a tiny group of online trolls tried to stir up calls to boycott the film, deeming it “anti-white propaganda.” Despite that blip, which obviously failed to hurt the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, the franchise embraced Boyega and his revolutionary role as a Black Stormtrooper who could impressively handle a lightsaber.
“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race,” Boyega said of the boycott.
“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 realise, ‘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.”
Somewhere along the way, Finn became a supporting character to Daisy Ridley’s Rey and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. Boyega also noted that stylists and hairdressers on set and on press tours treated him differently, adding that he caught them “cringing at certain clothes I wanted to go for.”
“You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything,” Boyega said of his Star Wars experience. “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. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”
The actor noted that fellow actors of color, Naomi Ackie, Kelly Marie Tran, and Oscar Isaac, all faced similar fates.
“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he said. “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 added that his white castmates did not have the same experience, claiming that they would willingly agree.
“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,” Boyega added. “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 recently made headlines in June for the stirring and emotional speech he delivered while protesting the police killing of George Floyd in London.
“Sometimes you just need to be mad,” he said of the speech. “You need to lay down what it is that’s on your mind. Sometimes you don’t have enough time to play the game.”
