Star Wars Actor Who Played Jar Jar Binks Reflects on The Phantom Menace (Exclusive)

Ahmed Best made history in 1999 as Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars universe, and it's something that is still close to his heart today.

Aside from being occasional comic relief as a “clumsy” Gungan who “failed upward” in a galaxy far, far away, Jar Jar's inclusion in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace 25 years ago, it was also a milestone in the film industry.

Jar Jar was the first main character in a live-action feature film created using motion capture technology and Best was the first actor to play such a role.

But as he now tells PEOPLE, negative feedback about the character and targeted harassment from some Star Wars the fans who followed the film's release prevented him from continuing to work for a while.

“Everyone came to get me,” he remembers, while phantom menace returns to the cinema for its 25th anniversary. “I’m the first person to do this kind of work, but I was also the first black person, a black man.”

Despite The Phantom Menace earning over $1 billion at the worldwide box office in 1999, Best says he was “ostracized” from doing similar motion-capture work in Hollywood due to the widespread criticism his character had received at the time.

Better yet, now 50 years old educatorfather and co-founder of AfroRithm Futures Groupremembers all the crucial moments that led to his casting The Phantom Menace when he was a young actor in his twenties. He was on tour with the Trample dance troupe in 1997, when a casting director offered him an audition at Lucasfilm's Skywalker Ranch thanks to his stage skills.

The performer quickly landed both the physical role of Jar Jar (for which he channeled Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan in Drunken Master) and later the voice role, which he debuted for castmates Liam Neeson, Jake Lloyd, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman and others around a table read some time later.

“It was the first time I was going to do Jar Jar's voice in front of people. And to be honest, I didn't know if I was going to do it at this reading or not. I was like, 'I could do it.” do it, maybe I won't. And as I read the first few pages, I'm thinking, “Am I doing this voice? Am I not doing this voice? »

“Liam has this wonderfully resonant mid-Atlantic Irish voice that will just make you melt. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, 'Everyone sounds so good. Am I going to do that voice or not ?' And then I saw the character's name come up and I was like 'F— that.' And I do it,” he recalls. “And everyone in the room is going crazy about it. So I'm like, 'OK, fine. I got this one out. I'm supposed to be here now.'”

On set, Best remembers getting along very well with the rest of the cast. While principal photography took place over four or five months in England, Best also traveled back and forth from New York to Industrial Light & Magic's studios in San Francisco for two years to complete the CGI demands of the role. The actor recalls that Portman was his “little sister” in the film, Neeson was a “fantastic person” to do scenes with, and says he and McGregor were “on the same page” because they both grew up watching George Lucas' original trilogy. .

“Everyone was respected and no one was bigger than the job,” Best recalled of filming in England. “And I think that’s the philosophy we took in making the prequels. Star Wars that will always be the case. This is what we are working towards. So as much as we can make this world believable, these characters believable, these situations believable, that's what we're going to do. We're not going to be stars above Star Wars. There is nothing greater than Star Wars. And I think that’s what made our casting really, really special.”

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As Best recalls, the cast was “in our little bubble” while filming the first major motion picture. Star Wars movie in 16 years.

“So when you come out of that bubble, you're like, 'Oh man, everyone is going to enjoy what we just did, because if you feel what we felt while we were creating, it's going to be amazing.' , he explains. . “But there were already preconceived notions about it, and this hatred online is already boiling over. We were already talking about it before the film even came out.”

The online hatred, which Best calls “the first textbook case of cyberbullying,” only gained momentum after the film's release in May 1999. And much of it was directed not just at Jar Jar as a character, but also against Best, who received death. threats to its performance. Some critics also considered the character a racial stereotype, something Best previously addressed in Many times.

“It definitely wasn’t easy,” he recalls of the negative reactions. “I was very young. I was 26 years old. And it's hard to have this idea that what you've worked for your whole life, you finally get it and you're finally in the big leagues and at the highest level of the game., and you hold on All these years, you just say to yourself, “I belong at the top of the game.”

“And then all of a sudden, people pull the rug out from under you. And I was like, 'What happens now?' My career began and ended. I didn't know “I didn't know what to do, and unfortunately no one could help me because it was such a unique position that it had never happened before in history,” Best continued. “Especially with the Internet component. Now there's a whole field of psychology based on that. But back then, what do I say to a psychologist? I just tried to do the best job that I could do. But George [Lucas] is untouchable and everyone else was untouchable. Who wasn't untouchable? Me. Everyone came to me. »

Best has previously spoken out about what followed soon after, when he contemplated suicide in the early morning hours on the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I didn’t want to hurt my family like that,” Best shares now. “So it was something bigger than me that made me leave. I was still lost. I still couldn't find my feet and I felt the injustice of it all. How could I to achieve such a wonderful thing, and then nothing? I wanted to continue this work and see what the CGI thing could become.

After deciding to leave New York for Los Angeles (“Walking these streets hurts”), the Star Wars former student struggled to try out new roles, having to convince casting directors that he was Jar Jar, and that the character was not simply computer generated. “I was carrying this weight that was hard to shake.”

Best says it wasn't easy to see his Star Wars “diminish and disappear” role in the two prequels that specifically followed the 2005 one Revenge of the Sith. After all, like many fans, he hopes to one day discover Jar Jar's fate.

“I would love for there to be a really good conclusion, just to find out what happened to Jar Jar. And then I don't think it has to be tragic,” Best says.

“There was this piece of Star Wars literature where Jar Jar ended up being this homeless clown on the streets begging for money or something. And I was like, “I don’t think so.” I don't think this is Jar Jar's fate. Jar Jar was incredibly clumsy and failed up. He was just a wonderful character who always found a way to succeed. And I'd love to know Jar Jar's fate from there, even if it's a closing scene.”

After overcoming everything he has, Best is now in a good place. He worked as a lecturer at USC and appeared in the Disney+ film. Star Wars series The Mandalorianand above all, he is proud to be the father of a 15-year-old son who “retains all my attention”.

His son was also a big Jar Jar fan, and as Best jokes, he now just wants to be like Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu. Best's son is also the reason he even decided to speak out about his mental health in the first place.

“I had to say it. I had to let people know that this happened. It was one thing,” he said. “Because no one should ever have to feel that way, to that extreme.”

“We have to be there for each other, we have to take care of each other. We have to be careful of each other, no matter what you do. Just because you're on a screen doesn't mean you don't 'don't have any.' feelings,” Best adds. “We have to be careful about people who give us the opportunity to be emotional, because that's who we are as entertainers.”

Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now plays in the theater before his 25th birthday on May 19.