John Boyega Thinks Disney Pushed Minority ‘Star Wars’ Characters “To the Side”

John Boyega opens up after gracing the cover of GQ this month.

John Boyega is on the cover of this month’s issue of GQ for Great Britain, and the 28-year-old actor gave an unsurprisingly candid interview. He opened up about his six years working with the Star Wars franchise, speaking at Black Lives Matter protests, and more. Watch an accompanying interview below.

When asked about his historic role as Finn in the three films, Boyega pulled no punches when it came to how Disney handled the character.

“It’s so difficult to maneuver,” he said. “You get get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

Boyega believes that his fellow cast mates of color–Naomi Ackie, Kelly Marie Tran, and Oscar Isaac–faced similar fates.

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he continued. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

John Boyega will next star as Leroy Logan in Steve McQueen’s upcoming Small Axe BBC/Amazon Prime miniseries.