TIME October 23, 2017
NEXT GENERATION LEADERS ▼
▼
‘GOOD
DOESN’T GET
CREDIT
SOMETIMES
BECAUSE IT’S
OVERSHADOWED
BY THE BAD.’amount of melanin in someone’s skin?” He
argues that everyone just wants to see themselves
represented onscreen and that it’s time for more
diverse heroes at the movies.
He pauses and then tells me, “I really want you
to include this: 99% of the response was positive.
Good doesn’t get credit sometimes because it’s
overshadowed by the bad. People tried to boycott
the movie, and we made something like a billion
dollars in 12 days. That represents every person
who bought a ticket. So much for your boycott.”
Disney is hoping the nextStar Wars, subtitled
The Last Jedi, will draw an even bigger audience
when it premieres on Dec. 15. Boyega’s innocent
Finn offered much of the comic relief inThe
Force Awakens, but the actor says the movie
and his character’s story get much darker in the
sequel. Finn wakes from a coma and is paired off
with a new character, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran),
as they embark on a dangerous mission with
the droid BB-8 in tow. Rose, a lowly engineer
who yearns to fight for the Resistance, believes
that Finn is a war hero. “Finn’s not so sure that
he’s a hero or that he really even believes in the
Resistance or anything at all,” says Boyega. “So
he’s off with Rose, who is a true believer, and he
has to figure out whose side he’s on and navigate
these conflicting emotions.”
Finn’s onscreen banter—with Rey, with Han
Solo, even with BB-8—made the character a
fan favorite. As a result, Boyega says he found
himself with an unexpected platform. He’s
used it to defend his fellow actors and challenge
the entertainment industry. He spoke for
Ridley when she left Instagram after an anti-
Detroit may not
have been a big
hit, but it was
“an even bigger
opportunity
thanStar Wars
to show what
I can do,” the
actor says
▼gun-violence post resulted in harassment. He
called out HBO’sGame of Thrones for its lack of
diversity. And he defendedGet Outstar Daniel
Kaluuya, whom he knows from the London
theater circuit, when Samuel L. Jackson said
an African-American actor, rather than a black
English actor, should have played the lead role
in the movie about American racism. “It just
makes no sense for Brits and Americans to fight
with each other like that,” says Boyega. “When
you’re black and in a position of influence, you
have a responsibility to speak out. When you’re
an actor, you have a responsibility to speak out
through your work.”DETROIT IS AN EXAMPLE of the latter. It is an
affecting, if complicated, film. Bigelow filmed it
as if she were running with a camera through a
war zone. But unlike her other recent movies(The
Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), the battleground is
a Midwestern metropolis. Boyega plays a security
guard who tries to act as a liaison between white
cops and black civilians amid unfolding violence
at the Algiers Motel. His attempts to protect the
innocent eventually make him a scapegoat for
the police. “It was an even bigger opportunity
thanStar Wars to show what I can do,” he says.
“You don’t want people going to a movie as
serious as this and saying, ‘Hey, why is Finn being
interrogated by the police?’”
Boyega’s performance has put him in the
conversation for an Oscar. That’s a particularly
important item on the superstar checklist and
requires a rigorous press tour. If you ask Boyega
who his role models are on that score, he’ll talk
about hisStar Wars co-star Ford. But when it
comes to influences, Boyega is more likely to
cite his peers. He brings up Issa Rae, the creator
and star of HBO’sInsecure. “That’s something I
hope to achieve someday, to write and develop
my own original project,” he says, adding that he
has always written but didn’t really understand
how to tackle a screenplay until Spike Lee gave
him a copy of hisDo the Right Thing script, which
included notes scrawled in the margins.
Boyega says he’s excited that several actors
he knew from the London theater world are
beginning to break into Hollywood too: Malachi
Kirby was Kunta Kinte in the recentRoots
remake for History, and Letitia Wright will
play a warrior in the 2018 Marvel superhero
movieBlack Panther. “It kind of reminds me of
that picture of Tupac and Jada Pinkett in high
school. Everybody’s gone off now to have their
moments,” says Boyega. “I think our generation,
we don’t want to wait around only to be given
the same stereotyped roles again and again. We
want to decide our own fate.” KAUR: CJ CLARKE FOR TIME; MUGARUKA: GRIFF TAPPER FOR TIME