It’s no secret that John Boyega, who played Finn in the Star Wars sequels, is not the series’ biggest fan — he’s been outspoken about the creative decisions made in the sequel trilogy, and echoed some fans’ sentiments. In an interview with GQ, Boyega gave some harrowing accounts of being a person of color on the set of the movie franchise from a galaxy far, far away.
When asked what he would say to Disney to improve the experience, Boyega said:
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.
Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. 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— 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 made headlines recently for speaking to a Black Lives Matter rally in London back in June. He touched on this in the interview, saying, “I feel like, especially as celebrities, we have to talk through this filter of professionalism and emotional intelligence,. Sometimes you just need to be mad. You need to lay down what it is that’s on your mind.”
Finally, on negative fan reaction to JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, Boyega offered a defense, simply saying: “Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your s–t.”
