How wuude!
Jar Jar Binks was presupposed 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 only 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 goal of an internet-fueled campaign of abuse, which included death threats.
At one point, Best told the Guardian in a recent interview, he found himself on the Brooklyn Bridge, contemplating ending all of it.
“I’ll show all of you. I’ll show you what you’re doing to me. And after I’m gone, then you’ll feel exactly what I went through,” Best remembers pondering.
The unfortunate actor reveals the heartache of his big break leading almost immediately to the darkest period of his life in a recent podcast, “The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks.” He speaks in regards to the excitement of being scouted by Lucas’ people while working as a dancer — and the terrible shock that followed.
“I used to be an infinite Star Wars fan as a child,” Best said within the podcast. “I didn’t know what was happening. I believed 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 grow to be commonplace, online naysayers went on a rampage.
Sites like JarJarSucks.com and JarJarBinksMustDie.Com dedicated themselves to destroying the character’s status. Late-night hosts invited Best on their shows simply 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 Latest York City apartment.
“It was terrible,” Best said of the period following the film’s release. “It was the bottom 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 within the podcast that it was this criticism that hurt him probably the most, and led him to think seriously about ending all of it.
Jar Jar was sidelined in subsequent movies, 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 serious role within the hit Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” this time as a Jedi named Kelleran Beq.