John Boyega is late. We’re scheduled to meet in the boardroom at his agent’s HQ in Soho and when he finally arrives, thankfully, there’s an immediate warm, ‘How you doing, bro? Pleasure to meet you.’ Dressed in a cap and a green striped sweater from Beyoncé’s Ivy Park collection, is he — like everyone else on the internet — a fan of the ‘Break My Soul’ singer? Boyega pauses cautiously, as if the question is a set up. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m her target market, but I dig Beyoncé’s business. I think she’s legendary for that.’
A powerful business ethic is something Boyega and Beyoncé share. A self-confessed workhorse, his belated arrival was due to a late night. ‘I was up until 4.30am having to read a script, [and decide whether] to accept it or not last-minute.’ Did he accept? ‘I’m playing a game and keeping them on hold for a bit. The role requires a bit more research. But the script writer is fantastic. Regardless of whether I’m in it or not, it’s gonna be a great project.’
The project we’re here to discuss today is Boyega’s latest, They Cloned Tyrone, a Netflix-backed trippy sci-fi comedy co-starring Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx. Boyega plays a drug dealer set on the trail of uncovering a government conspiracy following a series of freakish supernatural events (including human clones and mind control through hair-perming cream and fried chicken), while Foxx puts on a pimp accent that is flamboyant realness. If it sounds bonkers, you’re not wrong.
‘It was weird and different — but there was a [creative] opportunity, too. I knew I’d be playing multiple characters and that gave me a chance to explore versatility.’ Having Foxx already signed to the project helped: ‘Yes, I was keen to work with a team of people that I knew were creatively of a high standard.’ The film is in part a homage to the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, a cinematic sub-genre that often cast Black men and women as lascivious characters who beat the odds and overcame ‘the man’.
The films feed on Black stereotypes, but for Boyega this isn’t problematic. ‘I think that sometimes art is gonna deal with these stereotypes,’ he says. ‘You just don’t want to get to a point where there isn’t a reason for it. With TCT it’s actually critical that there are these stereotypes. For me it becomes distasteful when the storytelling itself and the character arcs are useless. For me, as long as there’s a story that I can go, “Ah that makes sense!” I don’t personally have an issue with it.’ Anyway, Boyega has always been into Blaxploitation films, the ones he was allowed to watch at least. ‘The one I remember was Black Dynamite — I caught it once at an auntie’s house. I’ve always liked the undercover brother vibe, the eccentric clothes, the music, the comedy.’
So much of They Cloned Tyrone pivots around conspiracy theories (starting from Tupac and Michael Jackson’s ‘deaths’) — does Boyega have a personal favourite? ‘Aliens. I mean the Pentagon confirmed that there are unidentified flying objects because of the footage they got from an airforce pilot,’ he deadpans. The United States can be a weird place, sure, but shooting the film in Atlanta, Georgia, sounds like it was nothing but joy. The set was ‘Black as hell’, he says, adding that off-duty, the cast and crew loved partying together at Foxx’s house or going to Atlanta’s famous comedy night The Shit Show, where ‘no shit was held back’.
What with Atlanta home to one of the highest proportion of Black residents of any American city, was he recognised there? ‘Not much at all, actually. I mean, sometimes people would squint their eyes but then they’d be like, “Nah, it can’t be.” I could move there in peace.’ The same could not be said of co-star Foxx, much to the chagrin of cast and crew: ‘We had a lot of people coming on set and messing up our shots a lot of the time. Security couldn’t handle the crowd… but Jamie could. [He’d] do a little free stand-up comedy or dancing with his boom box to enforce a little crowd control. Those were the moments I recognised [his] level of stardom. Even the security can’t do what he can do. When you see someone who’s more established than you are, you definitely look in admiration. It’s a very different ballgame.’
There’s no Londoner ever who says, “I wish I was from west!”
Though humble, Boyega’s own star presence is undeniable. On set for ES Magazine’s cover shoot, there is a mercurial quality to the way he commands the room — charming everyone with his humour (commanding them to ‘Oya je ka lo now!’ then teasing us with: ‘As if you guys understand Yoruba’) before pivoting into barbershop-style debates. At lunch, he takes part in friendly postcode rivalry with his agent, Femi, debating the merits of south vs west London, dropping one-liners like, ‘South London, it just raises giants, we are the ones that go out and represent for you guys,’ and, ‘There’s no Londoner ever who says, “I wish I was from west!”’
Born in Camberwell and raised on a council estate in Peckham, Boyega is a south Londoner through and through. His parents (Abigail, a carer, and Samson, a Pentecostal minister) immigrated from Nigeria and ‘japa’d — a colloquial term for aspirational emigration from West Africa — to raise Boyega and his two sisters in the capital. But knowing where the family came from was imperative: ‘I’m actually a dual citizen. Before we hit the teenage years, my dad found it important that we had [a] regular footing in Nigeria, a blueprint there, knew our family, our grandparents, that kind of stuff. When I got older I started going there by myself, spending time in Ibadan and Lagos, taking part in the Calabar Carnival. So I’ve always been connected.’
After winning a scholarship to attend the Theatre Peckham aged nine (early turns on stage included ‘Donkey in Shrek’), Boyega went on to study performing arts at South Thames College before attending the Identity School of Acting. Arguably London’s most influential BAME talent incubator, with alumni including Damson Idris and Malachi Kirby, it was the key to advancing Boyega’s career: ‘[Up to that point] I had just been doing local plays, “extra” work. I wanted to see if I could get better opportunity. [It was] light work — I had training, felt really confident. It made me hungry.’ It worked, and what started with a modest debut in cult sci-fi classic Attack the Block snowballed into career-defining roles in Kathryn Bigelow’s racially charged Detroit, historical action epic The Woman King and Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology — ‘He’s a life-changing director’, Boyega says. ‘Creatively, Steve is one of the directors I’ll always remember. That guy really challenged my craft and expanded my expertise.’ The role won Boyega a Golden Globe.
‘I appreciate [awards]. But for me, I want to connect with the audience, for them to be creatively affected and impacted by my films. A friend recently asked me the same thing, especially after 2020, who is worried about a statue? When we’re losing people in the cinema, losing the actual audience who are the biggest part of our industry? I appreciate where awards come from and how they can be important. But to care about it? Carry on!’ One franchise that needs no help in getting bums on seats is Star Wars. It was being cast as Stormtrooper-turned-resistance fighter Finn in JJ Abrams’ 2015 intergalactic reboot that not only upped the stakes for his career but secured forever bragging rights for his parents. Who could forget the London premiere of The Rise of the Skywalker when Boyega and his family arrived in traditional West African aso ebi outfit? Boyega commented to an interviewer on the red carpet: ‘I’ve decided to make sure that my mum gets her moment — this is how your mum really wants you to go to the premiere.’
What should have been a defining chapter in Boyega’s rise to fame is now mired in painful memories. In 2020, when he spoke up about how his role had been oversold in Disney marketing but was marginalised within the franchise, the racist backlash left a lingering psychological impact. In an interview with British GQ, he called out the studio: ‘What I would say to Disney is do not market a Black character as important and then push them aside.’ I’m forbidden from asking questions about Star Wars — his agent makes it clear that if I do our interview will be terminated on the spot. Any rumours he might return to the franchise won’t be answered today, sadly.
If anything, Boyega is committed to paying his success forward. Since forming his production company UpperRoom Productions in 2016, much of his focus has been behind the camera, geared towards improving access to the film-making industry. In 2022 he teamed up with Converse for the Create Next Film Project, which sponsored five young Black film-makers to create their first short films, and he’s ‘done a school tour in Lambeth and Southwark, going round exposing kids to other roles in the industry and connecting them with the creative space.’ It sounds… exhausting. Does he ever switch off? ‘There’s a time for everything and this stage is the building stage. It creates better opportunities for mum and dad, my family and young kids, which I’m passionate about. So that’s where I am.’
As for what’s next, Boyega is developing his own films, but notes that ‘everything’s frozen up because of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. Is he frustrated by the situation? ‘I’m all good waiting,’ he says. ‘Pay [writers] their money man. I think it’s important for them to go for what they feel they’re owed — I think it’s within their right, they’re very important when it comes to the writers’ rooms, the creative ideas that go on to make these big studios billions of dollars.’ In terms of specifics, he says he is keen to work with the premier crop of Black British talent ‘in an all-star renaissance movie: like Oceans 11, with Daniel Kaluuya, Chiwetel Ejiofor, David Oyelowo… even if I’m not in it, I’d like to see the main players in one film.’ It sounds like a big dream. But having spent a day in his company, I wouldn’t bet against Boyega making it a reality.
