Ahmed Best, the actor who voiced universally hated Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks, recently spoke of the experience on a YouTube interview. On it, the tragic story is revealed. The poor guy took the entire Phantom Menace backlash against his character personally and he's been the butt of jokes for 15 years.
According to Business Insider, Best appeared on a YouTube series called These Are the Actors You're Looking For, a fan show helmed by Jamie Stangroom where he interviews actors from the saga. On it, Best recounted his depressing experience after Phantom Menace came out and his character, who the cast and crew thought everyone would love, ended up becoming one of the most hated beings in science fiction.
"Star Wars was my first 'most hated' title in anything really. It was painful," Best revealed. "One of the biggest reasons I took it was because of the challenge of it. There was no Andy Serkis and Gollum, Navi from Avatar, Martians, John Carter."
This is the moment where we all feel awful about making fun of George Lucas' character.
As io9 reports, when it was time to shoot, Best was just ridiculously excited (as anyone would be) to be part of the Star Wars universe, working alongside Lucas to create a character that kids would love, in the vein of the Return of the Jedi Ewoks. But as it turned out, even Ewoks got less hatred from fandom than Jar Jar.
Although the toughest was having to deal with the never-ending backlash that continues to this day, Best was also pretty annoyed at his character's odd merchandising, including a lollipop dispenser that was so bad that "the head of marketing called [him] to apologize" for it.
Understandably, Best isn't looking to voice Jar Jar ever again, even if Disney were to ask. Which seems unlikely anyway, and even less considering Force Awakens is now the biggest domestic box office smash of all times in the U.S.
Lucasfilm probably won't be steering back into the dreaded prequels any time soon.
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