John Boyega had just £45 in his account when he booked Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Force Awakens grossed over $2 billion, but when John Boyega booked the role of Finn, he had just £45 in his bank account.

While speaking during a panel at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (via People), Boyega explained why he will “never forget the day” that J.J. Abrams told him he would be starring in The Force Awakens.

“I had been auditioning for so long, so I felt like he kind of took away my dignity a little bit,” Boyega said. “I decided to pretend as if I was busy, you know, when you just pretend that you’re busy. ‘I got other stuff to do, J.J.’ He goes, ‘Where are you?’ And I said, ‘I’m at this art show in Greenwich, mate. I’m very, very busy. Where are you?’ He goes, ‘Well, I’m in Mayfair and [at a] restaurant. Need to talk to you now. And we’ll talk about something important.’ And I go, ‘Okay, okay, I’m gonna be right there.’ At the time I had £45 in my account. It took £33 and 83p to get to J.J. Do the math.”

Boyega continued, “So I go in. Each step I took, I was nervous. I was like, ‘Okay, cool.’ You know, J.J. is a phenomenal, nice guy, and if he was to tell me I didn’t get the part, he would still feed me. And so I sat down and, J.J. just said, ‘Thank you so much for coming back. I know we’ve kind of [strained] you with this amount of auditions.’ At that time, I took it upon myself to try and get another audition and go like, ‘J.J., please. Look, I can audition again. I can do British, Scottish, Nigerian, whatever. And he goes, ‘You’re [in Star Wars].’“

The actor said he froze at that moment. “Like I even noticed how many sugar cubes were in this very crush little cup that was on the table. Everything felt very surreal,” he recalled. “And then this just puts the Star Wars stamp on it: [The Force Awakens co-writer Lawrence Kasdan] walks out and he said, ‘Kid, this movie’s gonna change your life.’ And that’s the Hollywood s—. You know what I’m saying?“

While The Force Awakens may have made a star out of John Boyega, the franchise didn’t make the best use of his character, and the actor even criticized Disney for its treatment of characters played by people of colour.

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