More and more it’s becoming difficult to listen to John Boyega and his take on Hollywood. We get it, the business isn’t perfect, it has flaws, and Boyega happens to think that he’s been slighted once or more when in truth he was selected to be a part of one of the greatest franchises ever. He wasn’t the ‘savior’ of Star Wars, but he was meant to be one of the characters that would hopefully help to revive it, and yet for all that he was given, all that he did, the guy still found the nerve to speak up and lash out at a role that was, for the most part, his big break. One has to wonder if all that didn’t go to Boyega’s head since he’s now stated that franchises are like ‘luxury prisons’. Oh, to be stuck in a prison that made one hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars depending on what a person was being paid. There aren’t a lot of people in the world that would find a problem with that, and those that might find an issue with it usually think long and hard before saying yes or no. It’s easy to get the idea that Boyega might not have given a lot of thought before stepping into the Star Wars franchise, since otherwise that ‘luxury prison’ might have moved on without him and found someone that was willing to take on the role of Finn without feeling the need to act the part of a male diva when all was said and done. It’s kind of hard to feel sorry for someone that gets paid this much to take on a job that’s pretending to be someone else, especially when they’re still in control of whether they say yes or no.
This is what Boyega had to say via MovieWeb:
“Being in a big franchise, it’s kind of like luxury jail sometimes for an actor when you want to do something else. Because remember, in a franchise you’re working on one character for many years, which can starve your other muscles. And in wanting to be in something where I knew that I’d play a different type of role, a different type of man, and then knowing [Small Axe director] Steve [McQueen] through, we’re all a part of the same industry so I’d heard about Steve’s directing style, I was really really curious and excited to have the opportunity anyway to be a part of it. And when it came through I was on the tele like ‘this is my moment.'”
Listening to Boyega at this point is like listening to a broken record as everything comes down to race and a story that makes it easy to believe that this young man has never held a regular 9 to 5 job in which that ‘luxury prison’ he wants to talk about would be an absolute dream for a lot of people who are stuck in jobs they can’t stand for not even a fraction of the pay he makes. Perhaps if Mr. Boyega came to wash dishes, mop floors, do a bit of manual labor, or something or other he might realize that his luxury prison, as he wants to call it, isn’t quite as bad as he wants people to think it is. That ‘starving’ of the creative muscles is kind of laughable really since it doesn’t take a genius to try and break out of what’s called a stereotype or to try and avoid being typecast since at this point his career might be on the rise, but the more he keeps making it apparent that he believes that he’s as good as he thinks, the harder that fall is going to be when his pride is yanked out from beneath him. Normally I would gladly give someone the benefit of doubt, but a comment made by Boyega in another article, that “I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race.” is the kind of ludicrous thinking that not only loses fans but makes it obvious to a lot of people that he’s going to be an issue when it comes to his perception of how he’s being treated on any given project.
Ironically, Boyega is set to take on an anthology that is his decision since he wants to work with the director, which means he’s going to voluntarily walk into another ‘luxury prison’ where he’ll spend his time collecting another paycheck and likely come out of it stating once more how his creative muscles have been starved once again. If not, then great, perhaps he’ll learn later on down the line that he has a choice over which parts to take and which parts to avoid. But likening anything he does to a ‘prison’ of any sort, is enough to make a person laugh.
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