Star Wars actor John Boyega has been a hot topic amongst fans over the last couple of months for openly criticizing Disney and Lucasfilm for their treatment of characters of color. This particular move was deemed by many as a risky endeavor but apparently, the production outfit was all ears, and in fact, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy reached out to Boyega in an attempt to resolve things and address the issue.
Boyega opened up about it in a new interview with BBC. According to him, he actually got a call from the Lucasfilm executive who surprisingly expressed her support for the actor's cause. He said: "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." He added, "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."
Boyega later explained the upside of his recent conversation with Kennedy. "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."
Say what you will about John Boyega but you gotta admire his guts for standing up for what he believes is right. It's not like he was only looking out after himself. The man is clearly fighting a battle a lot of actors in Hollywood are afraid to talk about so mad props to you, Finn. Thankfully, the folks over at Lucasfilm were pretty open to talk about things. Hopefully, this means that a change of pace is upon us.
Meanwhile, The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is now streaming on Disney+.
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