Why ‘Star Wars’ superfan Simon Pegg regrets hating on Jar Jar Binks
Whereas the first two Star Wars trilogies were hardly a haven for celebrity cameos, the Disney-backed sequels made a habit of secretly drafting in big names to play minor parts and allowing many lifelong fans to realise their dreams, of which Simon Pegg was just one.
Daniel Craig and Kevin Smith lent their voices to Stormtroopers, Edgar Wright and Lin-Manuel Miranda appeared as Resistance fighters, Joseph Gordon-Levitt played alien Slowen Lo, with Prince William, Prince Harry, and Tom Hardy all finding their own scenes as Stormtroopers left on the cutting room floor, while Pegg clambered into the prosthetics of Unkar Plut to continue making life a misery for Daisy Ridley’s Rey on Jakku.
Not just a dedicated Star Wars aficionado but a regular collaborator of The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams after working with him on both the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises, Pegg was beyond thrilled to become a part of a galaxy far, far away. However, he ended up regretting scathing comments he’d made about Jar Jar Binks, one of the saga’s least popular characters.
It’s an easy target and popular pastime among long-term Star Wars supporters to trash The Phantom Menace‘s nauseating comic relief, but what went almost completely overlooked was the effect it had on actor Ahmed Best. He thought he’d landed the star-making role of a lifetime after being cast, only for it to turn into a nightmare.
Best admitted the backlash had led to him considering suicide after constant bullying, backlash, and harassment from the darker side of the fandom, even though his job at the end of the day was to perform the character the way it was written in the script and envisioned by George Lucas.
Per Digital Spy, Pegg was “so ashamed of the fact that there was a victim, a human victim in that” after voicing his own displeasure with Jar Jar. “I think most people were regarding Jar Jar Binks like he was a real creature,” he continued, “And wailing on him for being annoying, or whatever, or not liking him. But there was a person behind that”.
After hearing of the toll it took on Best, Pegg realised, “I’m one of those people. It makes me feel awful”. The actor hadn’t exactly been shy and retiring when railing against both Jar Jar and the prequel trilogy, deciding to use an interview with the New York Daily News as the place to vent.
“I don’t really have any respect for anyone who thinks those films are good. They’re not”, he ranted before branding them “a monumental misunderstanding of what the first three films are about”. Comparing them to “infanticide” and “George Lucas killing his kid”, in Pegg’s eyes “Jar Jar Binks made the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft”. Scathing, for sure, but at least the actor and filmmaker eventually realised the error of his ways and apologised.
