John Boyega: ‘I was stopped at the airport every time I flew to Los Angeles’

The British Star Wars actor says he was always stopped for 'random checks' when he tried to enter the US
Breakout British Star: John Boyega in a shoot for ES Magazine
Yann Rabanier
The Weekender

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John Boyega has revealed he used to be stopped “every single time” he flew to America for auditions.

The Star Wars actor, 25, told ES Magazine: “I used to fly back and forth when I was hustling and auditioning for things in LA.

"I’d get cheap flights and stay there for two weeks or whatever. And every time I was getting these random checks. Every. Single. Time.

“I wish I remembered the airline because I called them out on it, too. Like, ‘This stuff ain’t right’. They said it was a problem Stateside, they gave me a letter and it stopped.

Breakout role: John Boyega with Daisy Ridley in The Force Awakens 

"But before that it was consistent. I understand that [these things] are for our safety but when you fly a lot and it happens three or four times there’s an element of, ‘Okay, I’m still not a terrorist’.”

Boyega, who grew up in Peckham, says he enjoys visiting Nigeria, where his parents are from, because “I love being in a country where I’m not the minority”.

He added: “It does something to me. I wish I could take my boys from America out there, especially at this time, to have that feeling.”

He went to the same school as Damilola Taylor and was with the 10-year-old the day he was killed in 2000.

“I was merely walking with him before it happened,” he said. “Me and my sister [Grace] didn’t know any specifics until the police showed up or whatever.”

But Boyega said it was not his “story” and did not represent Peckham, adding: “There are diverse spirits in that area who have different talents.

"I know a pilot from Peckham, I know a guy who deals in luxury cars and started his business in Peckham. Just because you’re in the area doesn’t mean you have to carry all the circumstances that come with it.”

Lead role: John Boyega in the forthcoming Detroit 

He is returning to the London stage after a gap of eight years in Georg Buchner’s Woyzeck at the Old Vic, and said it feels like a “really strenuous holiday” after a spate of movies.

They include Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which propelled him to fame in 2015. He will reprise the role of Finn in the next instalment and has also been filming The Circle, with Emma Watson, and Detroit, about race riots in Sixties America.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens European Premiere

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He said he regretted having publicly disagreed with Samuel L Jackson over the star’s comments about black British actors being cast in African-American roles in US movies.

He added: “I just think there’s no end result in black Brits and African-Americans going back and forth at each other ... I rate Sam and he’s always showed me love — he’s like a big unc — but across the planet, the black experience is a layered one and his comments didn’t represent that.”

Boyega still lives in south London and is at Peckham market “near enough every day” buying ingredients such as sugar cane.

Asked about the area’s gentrification, he said: “I get the need [to develop] for the betterment of our society and our spaces.

"[But] is that at the cost of people that have lived there for years? Who’ve worked there? Who’ve struggled there? What happens to them?”

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