Back in September, John Boyega made headlines when he called out the film franchise that made him famous, speaking out about the way Star Wars relegated its minority characters to the sidelines.
“[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 at the time. “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 fuck all.”
Now, however, in a new interview with the BBC, he revealed he had a “transparent, honest” phone call from Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy after he made those initial comments.
“So I got on a phone call with Kathleen Kennedy [Lucasfilm President] and she verbally showed support and we got to have a really nice, transparent, honest conversation that is beneficial to both of us,” Boyega said.
“I think these kinds of conversations, you can go into the realm of sounding like you’re just trying to save your own career, but what is great now is that it is a conversation that anyone has access to,” he continued. “Now people can express themselves about this knowing that any character we love, especially in these big franchises like the Marvels and Star Wars, we love them because of the moments that they are given, we love them because of those moments, and they’re heroic moments that these producers all decide for these characters so we need to see that in our characters that are maybe Black and from other cultures.”
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.