John Boyega Criticizes Racist ‘Star Wars’ Fans That Refuse To Accept Black Actors In Heroic Roles: “They’re Okay With Us Playing The Best Friend”

John Boyega‘s tenure within the “Star Wars” franchise started with a mind-boggling racist backlash that saw a vocal minority online freaking out that the trailers revealed he would be playing a Stormtrooper in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (Finn was essentially the film’s co-lead but the role was scaled back in sequels) and teasing that he would be wielding a lightsaber.

The actor is still expressing his understandable disappointment with a portion of the fandom that struggles to accept black actors in heroic roles in the franchise.

In the new Apple TV+ documentary “Number One On The Call Sheet: Black Leading Men In Hollywood” (via Entertainment Weekly), Boyega is sharing his thoughts on the franchise and how black actors, like himself, have to fight to find acceptance as the hero.

“Lemme tell ya, ‘Star Wars’ always had the vibe of being in the most whitest, elite space,” Boyega said. “It’s a franchise that’s so white that a Black person existing in [it] was something.”

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“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!'” Boyega said in the Apple documentary. “It’s like telling me how many cookie chips are in the cookie dough. It’s like, they just scattered that in there, bro!”

“They’re okay with us playing the best friend, 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’s worth remembering that Boyega’s experience wasn’t an outlier, as his co-star Kelly Marie Tran (who played Rose in “The Last Jedi” and in a demished part for “The Rise of Skywalker“) saw racist attacks that mostly were ignored by Lucasfilm/Disney. Some felt the studio caved to those racists by limiting her presence in the final film to mostly operating in the background compared to the leads.

That silence led to more emboldened organized online attacks on actresses Moses Ingram (“Obi Wan Kenobi” star Ewan McGregor famously spoke up for his co-star) along with “The Acolyte” actors Amandla Stenberg and Jodie Turner-Smith saw their fair share of vitrol too. These streaming projects were picked apart by groups of “fans” wildly upset that women of color were inhabiting “Star Wars.”

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Disney and Lucasfilm, for whatever reason, didn’t exactly stand up for their actors during these hate-screeds, and that has likely contributed to Boyega’s skittishness about returning for more “Star Wars” films in the future. Hopefully, that changes in the future, but we’re sure many actors are going to have second thoughts about enduring that kind of hate simply for existing in a genre space and seeking work like any other actor.