Source: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / Getty
At the beginning of the summer actor John Boyega was one of the most honest and boisterous voices in regards to the ongoing unrest fueled by the repeated killings of Black men, Black women and Black LGBTQ+ community members at the hands of police and racist vigilantes.
In a recent interview with the Radio Times, the Star Wars actor voiced he sometimes wonders if his outspokenness could cost him opportunities in Hollywood.
“Absolutely. I still have those thoughts,” he said, reflecting on the moment when he addressed the rally so memorably and powerfully.
“I understand, looking from the outside in, it might seem ‘oh, you’ve been in this and you’ve been in that.’ But how many actors do you know who have been in big franchises? It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to have stability for the rest of your life,” he continued.
Boyega unleashed a series of powerful messages on social media and during a BLM rally in London where he called for the protection of Black lives.
“Black lives have always mattered,” Boyega said at the June protest in Hyde Park. “We have always been important. We have always meant something. We have always succeeded regardless. And now is the time. I ain’t waiting. I ain’t waiting.”
“I’m speaking to you from my heart. Look, I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f–k that.”
In Steve McQueen’s series drama Small Axe, Boyega plays Leroy Logan a renowned Black officer who in his childhood saw his father be brutally beaten by the police, to eventually become the first chair of the National Black Police Association.
Boyega drew from his own personal experiences where he says he and his father were accosted by London officers.
“I’ve been stopped and searched,” he said. “And my dad, who was a Pentecostal minister, got stopped on the way back from church. I was little. Everybody knows, especially if you grew up in Peckham, somebody who’s gone through the darkest scenarios with the police.”
