John Boyega had $60 in his account when Star Wars came knocking, a pocketful of change that feels like a punchline next to a franchise that lit up box offices across galaxies. In 2014, the London-born actor was down to his last notes when director J.J. Abrams called him for what would become the most important conversation of his life. He had already scraped together a modest career in the UK.
Boyega first gained recognition in Britain for his role in Attack the Block, a sci-fi horror satire where he played a street-tough teen defending a South London tower block from alien invaders. It caught the eye of critics but did not bring in much in terms of earnings. It was sharp, funny, and gave him a seat in the British indie circuit, but not much else. He stayed grinding through auditions, barely holding his head above water.
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Detailing his life-changing meeting with Abrams, Boyega said, “I had been auditioning for so long, so I felt like he kind of took away my dignity a little bit,” Boyega stated. “I decided to pretend as if I was busy, you know when you just pretend that you’re busy. ‘I got other stuff to do, J.J.’ He goes, ‘Where are you?’ And I said, ‘I’m at this art show in Greenwich, mate. I’m very, very busy.”
“Where are you?’ He goes, ‘Well, I’m in Mayfair and [at a] restaurant. Need to talk to you now. And we’ll talk about something important.’ And I go, ‘Okay, okay, I’m gonna be right there.’ At the time, I had £45 in my account. It took £33 and 83p to get to J.J. Do the math.”
Each step he took into that restaurant felt loaded. Boyega later said he was nervous but ready to accept rejection with grace. “J.J. is a phenomenal, nice guy, and if he was to tell me I didn’t get the part, he would still feed me,” he recalled. When he sat down, Abrams opened with an apology for putting him through so many rounds of callbacks.
Boyega doubled down and offered another audition, pitching every accent in his arsenal. Abrams cut him off with three words that froze the room and sharpened everything around him — “You’re in Star Wars.” Boyega stated he remembered the exact number of sugar cubes in a crushed white cup on the table. Then, like a scene from a movie, Star Wars co-writer Lawrence Kasdan stepped forward. “Kid, this movie’s gonna change your life,” he told him. Star Wars: The Force Awakens did exactly that. The film grossed $2.07 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2015 and the highest-grossing entry in the franchise.
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Boyega, who played stormtrooper-turned-rebel Finn, was thrust into the pop culture machine. He was young, untested on the world stage, but held his own. The paycheck failed to match the significance of the moment for Boyega. According to Variety, Boyega earned a low six-figure salary for The Force Awakens, estimated to be between $100,000 to $300,000. The earnings may have been modest, but the attention was immediate. Boyega became a household name overnight. He returned as Finn in The Last Jedi, which earned $1.33 billion at the global box office, and again in The Rise of Skywalker, which earned $1.08 billion.
Together, the sequel trilogy brought in more than $4.4 billion. Even with box office milestones in hand, Boyega’s time in the franchise was far from pristine. He became the target of online harassment from fans who were uncomfortable with a Black actor in a central Star Wars role. In a GQ interview in 2020, he aimed his criticism squarely at Disney. He said the studio mishandled diversity, pushing Black and Asian characters to the periphery after promoting them heavily before release. Boyega carried that same candor into Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, an Apple TV+ documentary. He said the franchise always had a narrow sense of who got to lead.
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Characters like Lando Calrissian and Mace Windu were often pointed to as proof of inclusion, but Boyega was not buying it. He likened their roles to chocolate chips scattered in dough, not enough to flavor the whole batch. “They’re okay with us playing the best friend,” he said. “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.’” Boyega has continued to build momentum in his career. In October 2024, it was confirmed that he will take on the role of Otis Redding in Otis & Zelma, a biographical film where he will star opposite Danielle Deadwyler as Zelma Redding.