John Boyega Only Had £45 in the Bank When Director J.J. Abrams Told Him He Won “Star Wars” Role

• John Boyega told fans at a Chicago convention that he had only £45 to his name when he was cast as Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

• Boyega costarred in three Star Wars movies with Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver as a stormtrooper-turned-rebel

• The actor recalled that "everything felt very surreal" when director J.J. Abrams met him at a restaurant in London to tell Boyega he had won the part in person

John Boyega was down to the last of his savings when Star Wars changed his life forever.

Boyega, 33, looked back on his career during a panel at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo on Saturday, April 12, with podcast host Josh Horowitz. The British star had been acting professionally for nearly a decade before he was cast as Finn, a stormtrooper-gone-rogue, in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In conversation, he said he will "never forget the day" director J.J. Abrams sent him an email asking him to talk, following several rounds of auditions.

"I had been auditioning for so long, so I felt like he kind of took away my dignity a little bit," Boyega said. "So 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.,' " Boyega recalled. "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," he added.

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Boyega said that when he arrived at the restaurant to meet Abrams, the filmmaker was seated in a closed-off section of the building.

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"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," the actor continued. "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].' "

Related: Clive Revill, Star Wars Actor Who Voiced Emperor Palpatine in Empire Strikes Back, Dies at 94

Boyega had only appeared in three feature films before landing his Star Wars role. He told the audience in Chicago that "the moment froze" when Abrams told him he was joining The Force Awakens' cast. "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 remembered. "And then this just puts the Star Wars stamp on it: [the movie's 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?"

Boyega costarred with Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver as the faces of Disney's three Star Wars sequel movies produced between 2015 and 2019. The actor has expressed some discontent about his time with the franchise over the years, including in the recent Apple TV+ documentary Number One on the Call Sheet when he opined that the franchise "always had the vibe of being in the most Whitest, elite space." 

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