John Boyega has become a man known for speaking his mind, especially on issues that are important to him and many other people. And in a new interview with GQ, he's turned his attention, partly at least, to his frustrations with working on Star Wars.
"It’s so difficult to manoeuvre,” Boyega says of his time in that galaxy far, far away. "You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. But 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."
He also makes mention of other characters of colour, including Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico and Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron. "Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “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. 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."
Yet he still makes a point to acknowledge the stepping stone that Star Wars provided and rails against criticism of Rise Of Skywalker director JJ Abrams. "Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your shit."
For more from Boyega, including his thoughts on his impromptu speech at this June's Black Lives Matter protest, head toGQ.
Boyega will be back on our screens in Red, White And Blue, part of Steve McQueen's Small Axe series of anthology films on race and reality.