Star Wars actor John Boyega claims franchise is 'most whitest elite space' for casting black actors as 'the best friend'

British actor John Boyega, who played Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, blasted the franchise in a new Apple TV+ documentary, saying that "Star Wars always had the vibe of being in the most whitest, elite space." He lambasted the series for casting black actors as "the best friend" but not as lead heroes.

"It’s a franchise that’s so white that a Black person existing in [it] was something," Boyega said, per Variety, "You can always tell it’s something when some ‘Star Wars’ fans try to say, ‘Well, we had Lando Calrissian and had Samuel L. Jackson!’ It’s like telling me how many cookie chips are in the cookie dough. It’s like, they just scattered that in there, bro!"

Lando Calrissian was played by Billy Dee Williams in the 1980s. He was the leader of the Cloud City, a mining operation at which Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker stopped to hide from the Empire and Darth Vader. He was a key figure in that story. Samuel L. Jackson played Jedi Mace Windu in many of the prequel films. Jackson has said it was his "swashbuckling fantasy" to play the role. In an interview, he said "Way back when I saw the first one, I was burning to be in a Star Wars picture because it's like my swashbuckling fantasy." 

"They’re okay with us playing the best friend," Boyega continued taking aim at the fans, "but once we touch their heroes, once we lead, once we trailblaze, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, it’s just a bit too much! They’re pandering.'"

It was in 2020 that Boyega first made his grievances known, saying that "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."

"You guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” Boyega continued at the time. "But when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f*ck 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."

After that interview, Disney reached out to him, and he said that it was "a very honest, a very transparent conversation" with an executive at the company. Boyega said he hopes this makes things better for the "next man, the guy that wants to be the assistant DOP, the guy that wants to be a producer. I hope that the conversation is not such a taboo or elephant in the room now, because someone just came and said it."

This notion of the "black best friend" being a problem also came up in Kerry Washington's 2023 autobiography, where she said she would never play the role of the "white girl's best friend" in a film again. "It’s not that I wanted to be the star of the film; I wanted my characters to be in a story of their own. I didn’t want to be an accessory to a white woman’s journey," Washington said.

Vibe took aim at the perceived problem as well, saying, "Unfortunately, being relegated to the Black Bestie is something many current A-listers did on their way up the ladder. While some naively perceive the trope as a way to encourage interracial friendships, it ultimately uses Black characters as plot devices to serve the story of the project’s white lead, often left with no character development of their own."

Examples of the "trope" Vibe included were Sam the piano player in Casablanca, Dionne in Clueless where the lead Cher was played by Alicia Silverstone, and Hallie in Scream 2, which the magazine also blasted for not considering the notion that a black woman could be a killer. "God forbid we give a Black Woman something interesting and unexpected to do that would bring depth and complexity to the role," Vibe said in 2023.