How wuude!
Jar Jar Binks was supposed to be the role of a lifetime for actor Ahmed Best, plucked from a percussive dance troupe and given serious screen time in George Lucas’ “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” released in 1999.
But Star Wars superfans hated him. Not just the flamboyant, oddball character, but Best too, apparently for even agreeing to play the part.
With Jar Jar the butt of countless jokes before the film was even released, the actor found himself the target of an internet-fueled campaign of abuse, which included death threats.
At one point, Best told the Guardian in a new interview, he found himself on the Brooklyn Bridge, contemplating ending it all.
“I’ll show all of you. I’ll show you what you’re doing to me. And when I’m gone, then you’ll feel exactly what I went through,” Best remembers thinking.
The unlucky actor reveals the heartache of his big break leading almost immediately to the darkest period of his life in a new podcast, “The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks.” He speaks about the excitement of being scouted by Lucas’ people while working as a dancer — and the terrible shock that followed.
“I was an enormous Star Wars fan as a kid,” Best said in the podcast. “I didn’t know what was happening. I thought it was a prank.”
It wasn’t a prank, but Best’s lucky break did prove too good to be true. The character landed with a thud, at some points overshadowing discussion of the film itself.
In a preview of behavior that what would become commonplace, online naysayers went on a rampage.
Sites like JarJarSucks.com and JarJarBinksMustDie.Com dedicated themselves to destroying the character’s reputation. Late-night hosts invited Best on their shows just to harangue him.
When Best’s phone number was leaked and his answering machine filled up with death threats, it became difficult for the actor to even leave his New York City apartment.
“It was terrible,” Best said of the period following the film’s release. “It was the lowest I’ve ever been in my life.”
Worst of all, Best told a reporter, were the accusations of racism, particularly from black film critics who protested perceived stereotypes advanced by Jar Jar’s character.
Best reveals in the podcast that it was this criticism that hurt him the most, and led him to think seriously about ending it all.
Jar Jar was sidelined in subsequent films, presumably in response to the backlash. More recently, younger audiences not around for the film’s original release have taken more kindly to the character, and Best recently played a major role in the hit Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” this time as a Jedi named Kelleran Beq.
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