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Old April 25th, 2015 #61
john-connor
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Default Star Wars: John Boyega, the boy from Peckham who stormed Hollywood New Star Wars lead grew up on the tough streets where Damilola Taylor died

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cele...Hollywood.html
Star Wars: John Boyega, the boy from Peckham who stormed Hollywood
New Star Wars lead grew up on the tough streets where Damilola Taylor died, but a love of acting was the force that took him to the top


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John Boyega as Finn
John Boyega, who grew up on a council estate in Peckham, is the lead role in the next Star Wars film
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It promises to be one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters; the return of the epic intergalactic drama that has inspired a massive global franchise and won millions of fans.

But one actor playing a lead role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, could not have come from more humble beginnings.

The son of a Nigerian preacher, John Boyega, 22, grew up on a council estate in Peckham, across the road from the estate where Damilola Taylor was stabbed in 2000.

It was a rough area, neighbours said, where gangs, guns and knives were part of everyday life.

“To us that was normal; it was just how we grew up,” said a friend who was raised on the same estate as Boyega and his two older sisters, Grace and Blessing.

“But theatre kept John out of trouble completely. The theatre was his second home, it was the only place I saw him.”

John Boyega grew up on a council estate in Peckham

Damilola, who was a similar age to Boyega and whose parents were also Nigerian, was discovered bleeding to death in a stairwell of North Peckham Estate just before his 11th birthday.

Another of Boyega’s peers, Samuel Ogunro, was found shot in the back of the head in a burning car in Peckham in 2010, when he was 17. His murder had been “arranged” by a south London gang member who was in prison at the time.

Boyega's friend said that “not a lot of people knew” about Boyega’s acting because he kept it quiet.

“Everyone else does football when they’re young,” he explained. “John didn’t play football, he was more interested in acting, so he didn’t want to make a big fuss about it.”

He added: “It was a rough area but he had a nice family, I saw him going to church with them every Sunday.”

Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega at Disney's Star Wars Celebration 2015 (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Another friend, 22-year-old Daniel Ross, said that Sceaux Gardens Estate had been “very, very violent” when he and Boyega were teenagers.

“There were drugs, stabbing, a lot of gang affiliation,” he said. “You would never see John on the street or hanging around gangs though. I only saw him in church or in acting school.”

Demi Rump, 22, was close friends with Boyega during their school years. He went to Westminster City School while she went to a girls’ school next door.

• The Force Awakens trailer review: 'the screaming didn't stop'

“A lot of boys in his year are now in prison or dead,” she said. “Everyone was going down one route towards the end of school – taking drugs, selling drugs, gangs, that sort of thing – but John went down another. I am so thankful he got out of it.”

Boyega’s safe haven was Theatre Peckham, a performing arts centre on the corner of his Fifties estate.

Teresa Early, the theatre’s artistic director, recalled the first time she saw Boyega act, aged nine, in a play at Oliver Goldsmith primary school. “I saw him and thought, ‘Oh, that boy has something’,” she said.

John Boyega (left) in a Theatre Peckham show called Naylor’s Yard

Ms Early invited Boyega to join the theatre school, a special programme for talented children aged nine to 14, and, after securing financial assistance from a hardship fund, he enrolled.

Boyega spent almost every day after school at the theatre, as well as weekends, Mrs Early said. “He was [at the theatre] 24/7, it was what he thrived on,” she said.

Ms Early said there was “a bit of a problem” over whether his parents would allow him to pursue acting as a career.

“His father was a preacher and he wanted him to be a preacher too,” she said. His father, Samson, 58, his mother Abigail, 57 and Blessing, 27, are all trustees at the Wall of Praise Christian Centre in South Bermondsey.

Ms Early said: “I had a chat with John’s father when he was about 12 or 13.

“As long as John stayed out of trouble they were quite happy. And as John made his way, his father began to think there was some wisdom in it.”

Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in the new Star Wars trailer

At 16, Boyega moved to South Thames College to study performing arts, and joined the Identity School of Acting in Hackney, which helps aspiring actors from multicultural backgrounds.

He enrolled at Greenwich University but as his career took off, he left to concentrate on filming.

His film debut was in 2011, as Moses in Joe Cornish’s sci-fi horror-comedy Attack the Block. He went on to act in a handful of feature films and television dramas before his big break came last year, when he was cast in the Star Wars film.

When some fans voiced their dissatisfaction that a black man had been cast as a stormtrooper, Boyega responded with an Instagram post in which he advised them to “to get used to it”.
 
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