68 GQ.CO.ZA OCTOBER 2017
This particular Stormtrooper had defected
and crashed on the desert planet Jakku.
It was the fiercely shielded first shot of
the fiercely hyped first teaser of the
fiercely anticipated first Star Wars movie
in a decade, so no one without a Disney
contract knew who or where this
Stormtrooper was as he fought to get off
the dusty ground of what was actually Abu
Dhabi. The story behind that image in
the The Force Awakens was less fierce,
more... awkward.
‘Every time I’d move, the plastic would
pinch my armpits,’ the Stormtrooper says
a few years later, reminiscing in his South
London apartment. ‘I’d rolled onto my
bum, pushed up with my arms, then got
onto my knees, struggling to get my thighsred carpet of the 2015 London premiere
of The Force Awakens, a reporter asked
him how he felt. Boyega looked shocked
as he yelled, seemingly without permission
from his brain, and definitely not from
his publicist, ‘I’m a boy from Peckham’ –
a mostly immigrant, mostly working-class
district of South London – ‘and I’m in
a Star Wars movie!’
Boyega turned to the 15 hometown
friends he’d brought on the red carpet with
him. ‘We gotta get a camera to my people!’
Boyega beckoned the lens with both arms
and walked over to his people with the
smile of someone who suddenly realised
this was the coolest thing ever. His friends
draped their arms over him, and the whole
scrum of Peckhamites danced. His arms
started pumping, ending in pointed
fingers, then fists, then palms turned
upward to take in the glory of the moment.
This is the kind of thing you never see.
An expression of genuine happiness at
a contractually obligated, stage-managed
professional function. But it doesn’t feel
arrogant – closer to an offering of gratitude
to the forces that brought him there.
Two years after that premiere, we’re in
his flat playing Nintendo. I marvel at how
momentous that premiere was. It must
have just felt like everything had changed,
all at once – he was a star! Eyes fixed on the
Mario Kart race that he is about to win,
Boyega very politely corrects me, putting
everything in perspective: ‘Star Wars will
always be the star of Star Wars.’HOW DOES A 25-YEAR-OLD actor
come to have that kind of perspective?
Because he knows he doesn’t have all the
answers and is confident enough to go
looking for them. At Robert Downey Jr’s
house. Over waffles.
It was just before Star Wars: The Force
Awakens opened in theatres. ‘It was time
for me to sit down with someone who’s
been through the extremes of Holly wood,’
Boyega says, ‘and to be given some tips as
to how to stay stable.’ Boyega asked his
agent at the time if he could ask Downey’s
agent if Downey wouldn’t mind briefly
filling Boyega in on how to just, like, be
famous correctly. How to not become so
overwhelmed by attention that, as RDJ
briefly did, you squander your talent and
get busted for heroin. Boyega was hoping
to skip to the part where you maintain
a healthy relationship with your ego and
ambition, so that you’re able to make
fulfilling and lucrative creative decisions,
as RDJ now does. Sure, that’s kind of
embarrassing to ask about, but how else
would you find out? >>up. The sand was moving, and it was
a struggle. I was out of breath. It was
hot as hell. But I got my back up. And
then I came into shot.’
The Stormtrooper had been No One
until The Force Awakens. Unnamed. Rarely
heard. Then the Stormtrooper removed
his helmet and became John Boyega.
‘I thought they were going to keep
Stormtroopers taking helmets off
a mystery for a while,’ Boyega says.
‘I thought they were going to hold that
back, but they put you bang right in the
middle of the narrative.’
The face we were seeing held warm
deep-set eyes darting around the desert
while sweat dripped down his forehead.
Lips parted to reveal clenched teeth. It was
very human – and he seemed convincingly
terrified. Boyega’s talent was so obvious
that you see him on the screen and
think, yeah, that guy belongs here. When
he took off the helmet, Boyega became
part of Holly wood’s next wave, a swell
that would carry him through Kathryn
Bigelow’s new film, Detroit, and nudge him
into the top tier of leading men. And, yeah,
onto the cover of GQ.
But the moment we – the world –
realised Boyega was going to be a star was
not the same moment when he realised
it. That took longer. And you can actually
YouTube the exact second he got it. On theStormtrooper lay
in the sand,
sealed in the
white plastic shell
of a uniformbetter suited for
a climate-
controlled area:
like a Death Star.
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