John Boyega: STAR WARS Sequels "Pushed" Diverse Actors "Aside," Gave White Leads "Nuance"

[AndyDursin]

Man is this guy full of himself, attitude wise. He sounds like he landed on the moon by being cast in a STAR WARS movie -- I don't seem to remember Billy Dee Williams campaigning for a Nobel Prize when he was cast to play Lando in 1978.

I hate to tell Boyega this but -- honestly, it's not even close -- Adam Driver is a much more capable actor than he is.

Am I a racist?

https://deadline.com/2020/09/john-boyeg ... 234568684/

John Boyega has expressed his frustration at being “pushed to the side” in the sequels to his Star Wars debut The Force Awakens, saying that Disney gave “all the nuance” to Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley’s white characters in the later films.

In a candid interview with GQ, Boyega also suggests his fellowed diverse major cast members, including Naomi Ackie, Kelly Marie Tran and Oscar Isaac, were all victims of similar fates.

“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,” commented Boyega.

“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 **** all,” he continued. “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.”

He added that some of the film’s white cast members did not suffer the same outcomes, “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.”

In the interview, Boyega also expressed his frustration with how his casting and performances in the franchise were often perceived through the prism of his race.

“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race… 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.”

[Monterey Jack]

Driver is ten times the actor Boyega is, but I'm not allowed to say that, because it's "racist".

[mkaroly]

Maybe Driver is a better actor than Boyega, but it seems to me that Disney was all about pleasing everyone so they added all these ethnicities in starring roles...only to pretty much write them out of the story and focus on the two main characters, one of whom (Rey) was an uncompelling dud. They chose Female Empowerment over Ethnic Empowerment, the former of which was more in the fore at the time. Had the BLM movement and all the stuff going on now arisen during the making of the newest SW trilogy, I imagine that Disney would have gone full throttle with it, and Boyega and Tran and others would have been more in the spotlight. I enjoy Boyega being so vocal about it.

I can't prove any of the above...just an opinion. At the end of the day, while Boyega's comments may come across as sour grapes, they reflect poorly on Disney, reveal its wishy-washy political agenda (they will preach/ride whatever wave is necessary to cash in and make money), and show Disney's tired old one-dimensionality. Yet people still throw their money at this organization, so they continue to get away with it...and will do so until consumers stop supporting their nonsense.

[AndyDursin]

I mean, it's STAR WARS.

Who had "nuance" in the original trilogy outside of Mark Hamill?

Carrie Fisher's role basically went nowhere. Harrison Ford wanted Han Solo killed off because there was no "weight" to the character's arc, he felt. Did Lando do much of anything outside pilot the ship to blow up the New Death Star?

But WHO CARES. It's a sci-fi Saturday matinee. There isn't meant to be a ton of "heft" to the drama outside the core character. Here, it's Adam Driver and Kylo Ren that serve up nearly all of the dramatic meat. Driver has infinitely more talent than Boyega, I'm sorry. All I've seen from Boyega is the same INTENSE performance in everything he's been in. He couldn't possibly be as effective in the diversity of roles that Driver has been.

But at the same time, it ain't Shakespeare! Boyega should blame bad writing more than anything. Is it racist or just lousy storytelling at play here? Disney was more interested in satisfying the diversity bean counters and getting movies out for release dates than they were care in the actual product and its creation.

And here, I'll add this too -- I think Daisy Ridley is an actress of limited talent and charisma, and she's white, so there.

[Paul MacLean]

In mitigation, I do get where he is comping from. Boyega's and Tran's character weren't given much of interest to do; they were nothing more than "token" casting -- Disney paying lip service to "diversity" (in hopes of selling more tickets to "those people").

What I don't get is how Boyega includes Oscar Issac -- who is Jewish -- among the "marginalized" cast members, when Adam Driver is also Jewish.

To me, the main problems with episodes 7-9 were poor character development across the board, plus the presence of too many "main characters". The original movies had four. 7-9 had Ridley, Driver, Boyega, Issac, Tran -- plus Hamill, Fisher, Ford (and Dern in episode 7). It was overkill.

[AndyDursin]

Especially after this week, since some media members are now referring outwardly to "white Hispanics!"

I only get Boyega's grievance in that Finn didn't have much to do. But he's throwing it under the broad shingle of racism when the movie is just filled with like you said too many characters and lots of bad storytelling choices in general.

This is especially evident in the Rose Tico character which sums up how these movies were orchestrated. Nobody cared about Tran or her character, or wanted to see more of her. Fans generally depised her role because it seemed utterly pointless to begin with and was just another diversity check mark for Disney to cross off their list. They only brought her back in an obligatory part so they could save face for the initial casting, and address the victim status she endured on social media for publicity purposes.

[Edmund Kattak]

I'm not defending him, but either Boyega is misdirected or obtuse in in his statements. He obviously wants a career, so he takes this stab at the obvious without going to the core of the problem - which is the heavy reliance upon the Chinese market for revenue that Disney and many other studios walk that line of sensitivity - even if it means spreading this lie. Why I feel this way is the reports that his face was removed from the promotional posters and other materials by the Chinese movie distributors. I think it would be career suicide to take a knife to the throat of a market that Disney, Paramount, Warner, and others have come to rely on to fill the gap of lost revenue from a dwindling US and European market.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of these newer actors have been told by their Hollywood handlers that you either "go woke" or "go broke" if you want to work today in the business so long as this paradigm exists. It's unprincipled, unethical, and dishonest. But, perhaps he does not have a fall-back career at this point.