Hollywood actor of Nigerian descent, John Boyega, has opened up on how he got to star in the famed movie, ‘Star Wars’.
Boyega who is currently in the country to speak to stakeholders on ways to improve Nollywood and also premiere his recent work, ‘Pacific Rim Uprising.
‘He said: “My life as a Hollywood star has been great and fantastic. In the long run, you are who you are and where you come from does not really matter. It is all about the audition and the process and that has been fantastic. I was able to get a role in Star Wars because I was persistent and auditioning for so many things and it just so happened that the movie was what shot me to prominence. I also had a connection with the director of the movie, J.J Abrams, so I had an understanding of the roles” he told Punch.
When asked about his new flick, ‘Pacific Rim Uprising,’ he said that he really wanted to shoot the opening sequence in Nigeria but could not because he felt the nation was not ready for such.
“Because of the success of ‘Black Panther,’ Hollywood is ready for African stories and I think Nigeria has a lot of stories to share and they are ready to hear the stories. As an actor, I was inspired by seeing the movie but as a producer, I realized it means that they are ready to see movies about Osun, the Northern riders from Kano, and the other epic stories we heard of Nigeria in the previous centuries. At the early stages of this production, I really wanted to shoot the first sequence in Lagos, I wanted a monster to come out of the river and crash into the Third Mainland Bridge and destroy everything. It was an idea that I had because I wanted a Nigerian twin in one of the robots that they built themselves and I wanted it to have a worldwide appeal but the reality is that, is Nigeria ready for something like this? This has challenged me and I am going to come back and do something in Nigeria because I know we are ready,” he said.
John Adedayo B. Adegboyega , known professionally as John Boyega, is an English actor known for playing Finn in the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh film of the Star Wars series, and its 2017 sequel Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Boyega rose to prominence in his native United Kingdom for his role as Moses in the 2011 sci-fi comedy film Attack the Block.
