John Boyega, Star Bright

BY: Claire Connors

John Boyega knows a thing or two about acting heroic. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), the handsome British actor plays Finn, a reformed Stormtrooper, who joins Rey (Daisy Ridley) in finding Luke Skywalker. In 2017’s follow up, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Finn continues fighting the good fight alongside sparkly love interest, Rey, and then finds a new spunky romantic foil in fellow Resistance fighter, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran).

A virtual unknown until director JJ Abrams saw him in the 2011 British sci-fi comedy, Attack of the Block, Boyega, 25, may have been everyone’s first choice to play Finn, but apparently it still took seven months before the final decision was made to hire him.

Well, his star is certainly shining brightly now. Cast as a witness to the horrific violence of the 1967 riots in last year’s race drama, Detroit, Boyega was one of the standouts of that critically acclaimed but financially disappointing film. Later this month, he stars in Pacific Rim Uprising, the second in the sci-fi action thriller franchise. Not many loved the original, but the excellent cast was lead by the always-welcome Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost, so it was watchable.

In this round, Boyega plays his son, Jake Pentecost, and the new leader of Jaeger pilots, fighting against a revamped Kaiju threat. Other new faces in the revamp include Scott Eastwood (Suicide Squad), Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny…), Tian Jing (Kong: Skull Island), and Adria Arjona (True Detective). With a cast like that, it has to be good.

The honey-voiced Boyega will next be heard in Netflix’s animated adventure TV series, Watership Down, based on the book about a group of English country-side rabbits seeking asylum from the intrusion of mankind. Fellow bunnies include Nicholas Hoult, Daniel Kaluuya, and James McAvoy.

We don’t know when that’ll air, but for Christmas 2019, we’ll get a giant red bow on the opening of Boyega’s third installment in the series, in Star Wars: Episode IX.