LISTEN: Actor John Boyega Reflects On Childhood Friendship With Damilola Taylor

Actor John Boyega reflected on his childhood friendship with Damilola Taylor, whose tragic killing in 2000 shocked Britain and has defined campaigns against street crime in London since.

Boyega, who famously acted in Star Wars, opened up for the first time about growing up with Taylor in south-east London, a friendship cut short when Taylor, who was just 10 years old, was fatally stabbed walking home. Before his death Taylor had only recently moved from Nigeria to London before his death.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Last Word, Boyega recalled the event as a “life-changing” catalyst for him. He also revealed that he and his sister were among the last people with Taylor.

“I just think from the hours we left him in Peckham to the hours from when I went home and then the police were at our door was definitely life changing for me,” Boyega told host John Wilson. “To be involved in that way, even in passing, makes you feel like you’re inches away from something so tragic.”

He continued: “We were literally just with him right before he went to the library. It was me, Grace, and Damilola, and Damilola basically went one route. And so we kind of split paths. And once I got home a few hours from then, you know, the police were at our door.”

The host asked: “What was your reaction when you heard?”

Boyega replied: “I was so young, but I just remember thinking I didn’t know that mortality works that swiftly, that the days kind of just went on and then somebody was gone instantly, somebody that I just saw, somebody that I just spoke to, but it was definitely hard.”

Fondly, the actor recalled Taylor as “flamboyant and charismatic.” Boyega said: “I just remember Damilola with a silver jacket running through the playground of Oliver Goldsmith Primary School… flirting with my bloody sister and just being around us and cracking jokes…”

“Do you ever imagine what sort of life he might be living now?” Wilson asked.

“I do imagine that he would have gone on to do some very great things and whatever his chosen field would be,” Boyega replied. “He’d definitely still be funny. But you know, I think that he would he would have grown up to being someone that is an important part of our community, just as I feel like I’ve been embraced by my community… I think that Damilola would have been right there.”

Boyega said that he was prompted to speak about the friendship following the death of Taylor’s father, Richard Taylor, who led a decades-long crusade against violent crime since his son’s death and established the Damilola Taylor Trust in his son’s memory.