John Boyega facts for kids

Quick facts for kids John Boyega
Boyega at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	John Adedayo Bamidele Adegboyega (1992-03-17) 17 March 1992 (age 33) London, England
Occupation	Actor producer
Years active	2011–present

John Adedayo Bamidele Adegboyega (born March 17, 1992), known to the world as John Boyega, is a famous British actor and producer. He became well-known in Britain for his role in the movie Attack the Block (2011).

Boyega shot to international stardom when he played Finn, a stormtrooper who joins the good guys, in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The first film was Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). For his work in the series, he won the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2016.

He has also won a Golden Globe Award for his role as police officer Leroy Logan in the TV series Small Axe. More recently, he played King Ghezo in the historical movie The Woman King (2022) and starred in the science-fiction mystery They Cloned Tyrone (2023).

Early Life and First Steps in Acting

John Boyega was born in the Camberwell area of London, England, and grew up in nearby Peckham. His parents are from the Yoruba people of Nigeria. His father is a minister and his mother is a carer.

Boyega's love for acting started early. His very first role was playing a leopard in a school play. When he was nine, the director of a local youth theatre called Theatre Peckham saw his talent and invited him to join. He spent his time after school there, learning how to act until he was fourteen. His father supported his dream of becoming an actor.

He continued acting in plays at Westminster City School. Later, he studied Performing Arts at South Thames College. He even played the main character in a college production of Othello. He briefly attended the University of Greenwich but left to focus on his acting career.

Career Highlights

John Boyega (second from left) at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.

Boyega's career took off with the 2011 science-fiction comedy Attack the Block, where he played a teen hero defending his neighborhood from aliens. This role earned him a lot of praise.

Becoming a Star Wars Hero

In 2014, Boyega was cast as Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Finn is a stormtrooper for the evil First Order who decides to leave and join the Resistance. The movie was a huge success, and fans and critics loved his performance.

He returned as Finn in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). During the filming of the last movie, he accidentally left his script in a hotel room. Someone found it and put it on eBay, but a Lucasfilm employee bought it to stop the story from leaking!

Other Major Roles

In 2017, Boyega starred in Detroit, a movie about the 1967 Detroit riots. The next year, he played the lead role in Pacific Rim Uprising, a movie about giant robots fighting monsters, which his own company, UpperRoom Entertainment, helped produce.

He won a Golden Globe Award for playing a real-life police officer in Red, White and Blue, an episode of the TV series Small Axe. In 2022, he played King Ghezo in the action-packed historical film The Woman King. He also starred in the Netflix movie They Cloned Tyrone (2023), where he played several different versions of his character.

Activism and Speaking Out

A wax figure of John Boyega at Madame Tussauds in London.

Boyega is known for using his voice to support important causes. He gave a powerful speech at a Black Lives Matter rally in London, showing his support for victims of injustice. Many celebrities and his former studio, Lucasfilm, supported him for speaking out.

In an interview with British GQ magazine, Boyega also talked about his experience with the Star Wars movies. He felt that his character, Finn, was presented as very important at the beginning but was given less to do as the series went on. He said it was not right to market a Black character as a main hero and then push him to the side.

Selected Film and TV Roles

Here are some of John Boyega's most famous roles:

• Moses in Attack the Block (2011)
• Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015–2019)
• Melvin Dismukes in Detroit (2017)
• Jake Pentecost in Pacific Rim Uprising (2018)
• Leroy Logan in Small Axe (2020)
• King Ghezo in The Woman King (2022)
• Fontaine in They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

See also

In Spanish: John Boyega para niños