Quantcast
Star Wars 7: "Finn is frigging cool!" - SciFiNow

Star Wars 7: “Finn is frigging cool!”

John Boyega on why The Force Awakens’ Finn follows in the Star Wars tradition

As one of the lead characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, John Boyega has had his place cemented in Star Wars canon after being cast as Finn, an errant Stormtrooper who winds up linking up with scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) and hero of the Rebellion Han Solo (Harrison Ford). Unsurprisingly, he’s pretty enthused about what’s up ahead.

“I think Finn is frigging cool, that’s what I think!” he tells us. “Finn is at a very interesting point in his life… I think Finn sits with the great Star Wars characters comfortably. My thing about space operas or movies in which we have to go through this portal of imagination is that we want a character in the movie that we can relate to. We have the characters that are a part of the magic. For some reason they always know what to do, like Batman, they’re just always on it. But then we have the characters that are like, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure about this situation!’ I love characters like that.”

Such was his love for the character that Boyega admitted to breaking down in tears when he first read the screenplay – for good reasons obviously.

“What made me cry specifically was my involvement,” he explains. “It’s not anything to with the story; it’s just seeing your character’s name consistently coming up in a script for a film that is Star Wars! Because for me, I would expect [to read the] first two pages, then your character’s name’s not coming up as much. But it was good to see that Finn was a consistent character through this story and plays a vital and important role. And that just made me go, ‘Ohoho, yes!’”

With JJ Abrams attached, it would appear that the saga is in safe hands – something that Boyega clearly agrees with, something that helped him safeguard the film’s secrets, even when asked some relatively unusual questions.

“The one thing about coming onto a project like this is vision, and I believe in JJ’s vision. I genuinely believe that the way this guy is going about the decisions that he’s making are 100 per cent correct, and because I believe in the vision, if someone asks me, ‘Are you a Jedi? Do you control things? Are you Mace Windu’s son?’ I can easily say, ‘Just wait until the film comes out!'”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be released in cinemas on 17 December 2015. Read our bumper Force Awakens special in issue 113 of SciFiNow, on sale now. You can download our Complete Manuals to the Original Trilogy and Expanded Universe from GreatDigitalMags.com.