NEW YORK: John Boyega is only 28, but being a professional actor of 10 years and a veteran of three Star Wars films has given him insight into what its like for a young performer breaking into Hollywood.
Normally the assumption is you keep quiet, you keep cashing checks and you keep it moving. Thats the hardest thing to navigate, when you dont feel that way,” he says.
This year, Boyega has made it clear he doesn’t feel that way, that he isnt going to bite his tongue. In July, he gave a fiery speech at a London protest in the wake of George Floyds death, shouting through a megaphone and fighting back tears. He wondered aloud whether hed have a career afterward.
Black lives have always mattered, Boyega told demonstrators. We have always been important. We have always meant something. We have always succeeded regardless. And now is the time. I aint waiting.
In September, Boyega severed ties with the London cosmetics brand Jo Malone after the company reshot, with a different brand ambassador, a video he had made that touched on his childhood neighborhood and Nigerian heritage. He said on Twitter, dismissively trading out ones culture this way is not something I can condone.
And in a GQ interview in September, Boyega criticized the makers of Star Wars for their uncertain handling of his character, Finn, and for giving all the nuance to characters played by Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley: 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. Its not good. Ill say it straight up.
In a year riven with resistance, Boyega has seemed suited to the moment — an unapologetically candid actor breaking free of PR-controlled Hollywood constraints. He won’t, he says, “fashion my career to be like a politician or take the money and shush.
People need to go up there and reflect whats real,” says Boyega, speaking by video conference in an interview from London. “Sometimes you get angry, sometimes Im wrong, sometimes Im right. Be human, rather than having to get into a space where youre successful but then you have to lose your identity. Thats whack. No ones doing that, especially not my generation.
Boyega stars in Steve McQueens Red White and Blue, the third film in the directors extraordinary anthology of Black life in London from the 60s through the 80s. The five-film series is playing on the BBC in the U.K. and on Amazon Prime in the U.S.; Red, White and Blue will debut Dec. 4 on Amazon. In the true story, Boyega plays Leroy Logan, an aspiring research scientist who gives up the lab to join the overwhelmingly white London police force in the 1980s.
Its almost certainly Boyegas best performance yet — a reintroduction, in a way, to a young actor who has shown flashes of his potential but who to most remains identifiable as a central Star Wars character who seemed to drift to the sidelines of the space saga. Red, White and Blue puts Boyega front and center and wrestles with many of the social issues — race, change, belonging — that he is grappling with, too.
Theres something about him right now thats vital, says McQueen. You want to hear that voice. It reminds me of Jack Nicholson in the 70s where you wanted to hear that voice. Theres something dangerous and uncensored and untethered and sexy about him. Thats what you want in a leading man.
Logans decision to join the police is confounding to his father (Steve Toussaint), who was beaten by racist police officers. But Logan believes he can, as one of very few officers of color, remake the system from the inside, despite regular abuse.
For an actor recoiling from his experience within the belly of blockbuster-making Hollywood, Red White and Blue has both powerful parallels and telling distinctions about navigating a system that can be inhospitable to people of color.
Everybodys different and the fight requires all different types of people, all different types of strategies, says Boyega. Being an actor, living within that privilege and having the opportunity to go onto other projects and greenlight things, you can use a lot of that for the impactful stuff. I see the lines between the experiences…. But you understand that these obstacles are all too familiar.
Born John Adedayo Bamidele Adegboyega to parents of Nigerian descent in the Peckham district of London, Boyega drew partly on his own upbringing for Red, White and Blue — a drama of institutional racism but also a father-son tale. An early scene recalls a memory of Boyegas when his father, a Pentecostal minister, was searched by police on the way home from church.
McQueen said he, Boyega and co-writer Courttia Newland talked a lot about what Black fathers said to their sons, because they wanted to protect them and they knew the dangers of the world out there. Obviously the movie is dealing with masculinity in a way. But its also one generation dealing with the same situation as the younger generation and how they deal with it differently. Its a difficult conversation. When you want to integrate and be a part of something and you find out youre not welcome, its difficult.”
Since Boyegas comments about Star Wars, hes received a supportive phone call from producer Kathleen Kennedy that Boyega has described as frank and transparent. Following his protest speech, many filmmakers and actors responded that they would be honored to work with him. We got you, John, wrote Jordan Peele.
But if anyone thought that moment reflected a new John Boyega, it didn’t. He’s just being heard more clearly.
I dont think its me necessarily finding my voice. I think its the audience noticing me in that sense, says Boyega. This is kind of an eye-opener to you guys more than it is to me. I’ve kind of been about it.
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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