John Boyega joined the Star Wars franchise as ex-stormtrooper and Resistance fighter Finn in 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and reprised his role in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” in 2017, before returning for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019. But now he’s doubling down on his previous statement that he won’t be back in the universe.
In 2020, he spoke out against how he had been treated while part of the franchise, and in an Aug. 24 interview with John Fugelsang on Sirius XM’s “Tell Me Everything,” Boyega said he’s still not planning on making any more Star Wars movies. “At this point, I’m cool off it,” he said. “I’m good off it. I think Finn is at a good confirmation point where you can just enjoy him in other things, the games, the animation. But I feel like ‘VII’ to ‘IX’ was good for me.”
In a September 2020 interview with GQ, Boyega said he felt Lucasfilm’s treatment of his character was “not good” and said the company needed to learn to 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.” In the same interview, he also spoke out about the racism he had faced from the Star Wars fandom, saying, “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.”
Several years later, Boyega said during his August “Tell Me Everything” interview that he’s noticed some changes to the Star Wars world since he spoke out. For one, he was happy to see Moses Ingram receiving support from her “Obi-Wan Kenobi” costar Ewan McGregor after she faced racist attacks from fans.
“Moses Ingram being protected makes me feel protected,” he said. “Because when I started, it wasn’t really a conversation you could bring up. But now, to see how blatant it is, to see Ewan McGregor come and support . . . it for me fulfils my time where I didn’t get support. It doesn’t make me feel bitter at all, it makes me feel like . . . sometimes you’re not the guy to get the blessing. Sometimes you’re Moses, you lead the people to the mountain, but you see the destination, you don’t get to go in. You get others to go in, and that’s where you get your happiness from.”
Though he won’t be back in a Star Wars feature anytime soon, Boyega has plenty of upcoming projects on his plate. In 2022, he will appear alongside Viola Davis in “The Woman King” and will star in the new Bleecker Street film “Breaking,” which hits theatres on Aug. 26.
