John Boyega covers the new issue of British GQ to promote his role in Steve McQueen’s new limited series Small Axe, about racism and police in Britain. He spends much of the interview talking about race and racism, how disappointed he was with Disney/LucasFilm, and his extraordinary speech at a Black Lives Matter rally in June. I found his words about Disney to be the most affecting, because many will say he’s “biting the hand that feeds” and tsk tsk. But he has every right to be uncomfortable with how Finn was treated within the latest Star Wars trilogy, and I love that he has the balls to talk about his issues publicly. Some highlights:
How he feels about his emotional BLM speech: “I feel like, especially as celebrities, we have to talk through this filter of professionalism and emotional intelligence. Sometimes you just need to be mad. You need to lay down what it is that’s on your mind. Sometimes you don’t have enough time to play the game.” The rawness, he says, came from looking out into the crowd that day and seeing his own fear and weariness mirrored in the eyes of the other black men present. “That just made me cry,” he adds. “Because you don’t get to see that.”
Growing out his hair: “When black men grow out their hair it’s a very powerful thing. Culturally, it stands for something.”
A stylist was a douche to him: For the first Star Wars film, he continued to notice a stylist he’d hired when he first started doing press “cringing at certain clothes I wanted to go for”, the hairdresser who had no experience of working with hair like his but “still had the guts to pretend”, and he decided that he could no longer grin and bear it like a grateful competition winner. “During the press of [The Force Awakens] I went along with it. And obviously at the time I was very genuinely happy to be a part of it. But my dad always tells me one thing: ‘Don’t overpay with respect.’ You can pay respect, but sometimes you’ll be overpaying and selling yourself short.”
How he feels about Star Wars now: “It’s so difficult to manoeuvre. You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” He is talking about himself here – about the character of Finn, the former Stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in the first film before being somewhat nudged to the periphery. But he is also talking about other people of colour in the cast – Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran and even Oscar Isaac (“a brother from Guatemala”) – who he feels suffered the same treatment; he is acknowledging that some people will say he’s “crazy” or “making it up”, but the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi was particularly hard to take.
He keeps going about Disney’s choices: “Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f-ck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”
He ended up becoming more militant: “I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race. Let’s just leave it like that. It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realise, ‘I got given this opportunity but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.’ Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it]. Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”
While he name-checks Kelly Marie Tran in a significant part of the interview, I think Kelly Marie Tran deserved a shoutout in the last part too, the “their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race.” Salty neckbeard bros were soooo upset about Kelly Marie Tran because she’s a woman AND because she’s Vietnamese-American. But otherwise, everything he says here is the God’s honest truth. One could argue that the Disney people didn’t set out to sideline the non-white characters, because I honestly don’t believe that was their intention. But that’s a worse story, honestly, because that’s the story of how Disney completely bungled this trilogy and didn’t care about the stories and they were just in it for a money-grab. They sidelined the non-white characters because it never occurred to them that Boyega, Isaac or Tran’s characters should have proper arcs, or could play a bigger role in the story.
Cover & IG courtesy of British GQ.
He’s awesome and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Yes! I have an old lady’s crush on him and want the best for him and his career!
Well he’s right. And I thought his character was going to play a much more important role in the trilogy, based on the first one. I actually really disliked the final film in this trilogy. I thought everything was just such a letdown. Maybe it was because Carrie’s gone, but I think what he’s speaking to here played a big role too.
Same, same, same! I hate the third film and all they did to undermine and sideline the characters of color (don’t even get me started on the Rey/Ren mess)!
I actually think his character fared better than Oscar Isaac’s or more Kelly Marie Tran’s. He was at least running around and saving stuff in the last movie, which was legit terrible. But, yeah, I think they had too many new characters to cope with in the last trilogy, esp. when they still had to resolve the stories of the old characters.
My (probably unpopular) opinion is that Finn’s journey mimicked Han’s in a lot of ways. Han went from smuggler to Rebellion hero, Finn went from confused Stormtrooper who wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight for good or just run away to a Resistance hero. Both arcs were pretty much finished by end of the second movie and they could’ve killed both Han and Finn off, but they kept them around to help lead the rebellion/resistance in the final installment despite their growth pretty much stopping by that point. I actually liked Finn best in the third film because it felt like he’d come into his own. Daisy and Adam were given meatier material because they were the leads. Finn and Poe were secondary leads and therefore were treated more like Han and Leia in the original trilogy — important, didn’t have as much emphasis placed on them as, say, Luke and Vader. It’s unfortunate Finn didn’t have a chance to lead a full-on Stormtrooper uprising or something like that, though, because that would’ve made a lot of sense for him. I can see how this can be viewed as the writers intentionally sidelining people of color, but I truly do not think that was the intent.
Obviously his feelings on his experience are completely valid and it doesn’t matter what I think as an outsider, but that’s my two cents as a long-time Star Wars fan who could write essays about it all day, lol. I feel like I should also note that I waited my whole life to see a woman leading a Star Wars trilogy and not just a secondary character like Leia and Padme (both awesome in their own right). This trilogy, and Rey, mean a lot to me for that reason. And as a white woman, I can absolutely see how Disney, in their excitement to feature a woman female lead and feeling like that was progressive, failed to realize how they could be failing people of color in the process.
And finally, on his final point — the Star Wars fandom can be bigoted and disgusting (they’ve been downright cruel to Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best). The fact that John was of course so painfully aware of how fans treated him for being Black — people boycotting, countries making his picture tiny on poster, etc. etc. — is horrifying.
I’m not a particular Star Wars fan and haven’t seen the final film in the latest trilogy. Even if you’re right and it wasn’t the writers’ intent, it still feels like tokenism to introduce several major characters who aren’t white, and then not give them anything meaningful to do.
This is becoming more and more common in movies and on tv, people of colour introduced in visible supporting roles (and usually their race is wholly incidental and not referenced in any way) but not the lead roles that the story is actually built around. It’s like diversity paint-by-numbers.
“it still feels like tokenism to introduce several major characters who aren’t white, and then not give them anything meaningful to do.”
I guess part of what I’m saying is that I don’t feel he wasn’t given anything meaningful. The second film featured Finn and Rose off on an important mission for the Resistance, a mission that really cemented Finn’s commitment to the cause itself, not just his friend Rey, because he learned from how Rose sees the injustices of the world.
I think about what Han and Leia did in Empire Strikes Back, one of my favorite Star Wars films — they bickered on Hoth, got stuck in a space worm temporarily, and then needed their ship repaired in Cloud City where they talked about their feelings. That’s very literally all they did. I feel like people are SO hypercritical of newer Star Wars films, because I very genuinely don’t see how Finn’s plot in his second film is all that different from Han’s plot second film. It actually advanced his character arc far more than Han’s second film did for him.
Star Wars fan here too and I think you make a great point. As I enjoy Star Wars movies in general I would have enjoyed any spin off of Finn. It did seem like he would have been bigger and it didn’t seem his story is fully done considering he is force sensitive.
That being said if they asked him and he said no I do not blame him. It’s impossible for me to imagine someone hating my race at all, much less threatening, much less those who claim to be fans!
I will say Adam Driver was downright fantastic and I hope Mulan is a booming success SO Disney makes more POC lead movies (even though I acknowledge they should do that regardless of the success of a movie)
Han Solo was a force unto himself, there was no side lining of his character in Star Wars, your example doesn’t hold up. Finn and the other characters of color were sidelined in the series and it doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not the results are the same. I wish people would see a thing and actually see the thing the way it is and stop making excuses. We are in this moment of time world wide because many well meaning people refuse to see what is right in front of their faces until it’s too late.
Yeah, you cant compare Finn and Han Solo, and that’s kind of Boyega’s point. Solo was technically a secondary character, and sure, he didn’t do that much in Empire after they left Hoth, but they still let Harrison Ford shine enough that he left the series as one of the biggest action heroes of the 80s and his lines are the ones that get quoted the most, besides “I am your father” and “use the force.”
I’m tempted to agree with you, but I do think they purposely sidelined Kelly Marie Tran’s character after the second film, and I think that has a lot to do with having no plan for Finn in the final installment other than to run behind Rey and try to remind her of her good nature.
I agree with you there, superashes. I personally really enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker, but it was clear it suffered for changing directors/writers, and not getting the most out of Finn’s storyline was a result. I would’ve loved to see him help break the brainwashing Stormtroopers have endured and lead them to fight against the First Order with Rose’s help. I think one thing the final film really botched was how desperately it wanted to shoehorn the trio of Rey/Finn/Poe into it, when it probably should’ve been Rose/Finn/Poe while Rey was off dealing with her own stuff.
I think you are completely wrong. John was sold as the MAIN character for the first movie. And obviously I’m not accusing you of this, but what you said is the same thing a lot of “kylo Ren’s”(I can’t recall his name correctly) Fans used to said to John ’s fans when they brought up this issue. Daisy’s fans did the same thing.
And “Rey” was another white brunette in a trilogy with tons on white brunettes
Exactly. The Last Jedi took Finn from a central character interacting with other main characters and sent him off on a side mission that in the end, had no effect on the larger story. You literally could have lifted that entire storyline out of the movie and it wouldn’t have effected anything in the rest of the movie. It felt like they wanted to get Finn out of the way so they could focus on Rey/Kylo romantic development.
Yeah I really saw John & Daisy as the 2 leads, with Kylo & Poe as the lead supporting roles (in the first movie)
I agree completely! Rae and Finn were co leads in the first movie, which was my favorite partially because they had great chemistry. Then Finn, the most interesting character imo was shunted to a secondary character. I thought the 2nd two films were boring garbage. The first is the only one I would rewatch.
I didn’t really care about any of the characters in the new trilogy. I grew up with the original and Han Solo was my first crush, so the new trilogy lost me completely when Han dies and Leia comforted Rae and not Chewie. That said, I do understand where Boyega is coming from, his character in particular is all over the place.
The storylines for Finn and Rose just sucked. I’m happy to hear him say it. Overall, I really liked the new Star Wars movies and I love that they made them more diverse. But I was definitely let down by the lame storylines for Finn and Rose. Clearly the actors were capable of more and it shouldn’t have been hard to write more interesting, complicated storylines for them (a stormtrooper who defected to the other side could easily have been involved in all manner of interesting things). They did make it seem like Finn was going to be one of the major stars of the new movies and then he was very much sidelined into dumb side plots.
The new trilogy suffered in introducing too many overhyped characters and not developing any of them properly. In addition to our new main trio, we still had the stories of Han, Leia, and Luke to wrap up. THEN we got Rose. THEN we got Admiral Holdo. THEN we got Zorii. THEN we got Jannah. All characters with potential, but zero development.
Where is the lie? He’s absolutely right characters of color were sidelined.
Exactly. It certainly feels intentional when they were all sidelined by the end.
Wasn’t he originally marketed as a lead? Didn’t they tell him he was a lead when he got hired? I seem to recall this. Imagine being told you’re the lead and then get sideline – that must be bitter.
The very first trailer featured him. A storm trooper pulls off his mask and there’s a Black man! It made the fanboys reach for their smelling salts.
Yes he was – as usual in Star Wars too many characters fighting for screen time. It was a cheap move by Abrams to being the Emperor back, Kylo Ren could have taken the villain arc all the way. General Hux was an underused villain that also could have had a good arc.
Finn was a stronger character than Rey, partly down to John’s talent and onscreen charisma. Its a travesty that he got sideline to big up other, weaker characters/actors and cheap/easy plot lines.
Abrams, Kennedy and Disney catered to the fanboys. It was done purely to recoup the millions they spent buying the franchise from Lucas. Disney have at least started to redeem themselves with The Mandolorian. I hope they continue with the stories/characters from the expanded universe. They can create their own characters now but for the love of God keep Abrams away from it.
@Digital Unicorn I find people’s varying opinions on the Emperor’s return to be so interesting. To me, the story would’ve felt disconnected from the other two trilogies without the same villain at the heart of it all; not to mention I LOVE the parallels it gives Revenge of the Sith and Rise of Skywalker. (Spoilers) A Palpatine luring a Skywalker to the dark side in ROTS and another Palpatine bringing a Skywalker (a Solo technically, but also a Skywalker) back to the light in the final installment was really beautiful to me. And Rey needing to be the one to truly end the cycle because she was the one who had genuine evil running through her veins was quite powerful. Anakin chose the power the Emperor could give him over the woman he loved; Ben chose Rey over the Emperor’s promises. Vader was born in fire/Ben was reborn in water, etc etc. I think a lot of great stuff came from having the through line of the Emperor.
I liked the return of Palpatine, but I thought it was just handled so poorly, like so many other things in the last trilogy. There was so much that was supposed to be important in the first one, like Rey’s background, then the second one insists it doesn’t matter at all, and then the third one was all J/K THIS WAS TOTALLY IMPORTANT!! I just feel like they were saying “fooled you!” to the audiences in a Dark Helmet voice. It wasn’t a bad concept, but it was executed poorly.
I also hated Kylo Ren (Adam Driver is so annoying to me) so I hated any scene with him, which killed like half the trilogy, lol.
I think he has goods points (especially the fact that disney use minorities as tokens to make them looks progressist) but I don’t think his character was pushed aside because of his skin but rather by the whole mess that was character development (even for Rey and Kylo, they were so full of clichés and emptyness). The trilogy scenario was botchered and so Fynn became a collateral victim.
The character development setup was great in the first movie. The stormtrooper who rejects his training/programming to reluctantly become part of the resistance. That’s great stuff. What is it about him that made him able to do that? He could have worked to free more stormtroopers from their brainwashing in the second movie. They hinted at his force sensitivity– they could have delved into that. He and Poe could have worked together to pull together the resistance. But no. Instead they played him for jokes, then sidelined him on a pointless side mission.
Finn was the only character who wasn’t a retread of other characters. It would have been a much better trilogy if they had focused on him
Not a lie was told. I like the fact that he’s called everyone out.
I think the worst of it is that it looks like Disney just caved to the racists
Finn was set up for a great storyline in TFA. A Stormtrooper rebellion? Bring it on! But not so much in TLJ. Same with Poe. They save the only Latino character only to trash him in TLJ and make him a smuggler in TRoS. Kelly Marie…Lord have mercy. What they did to her was disgusting. She’s portrayed as being so knowledgeable and feisty in TLJ, then the role she plays and the lines she should have had were given to a white actor, who happens to be friends with JJ Abram, and a character we’ve never seen before. Drag them, John! Drag them!
The irony is that in other parts of the interview he strongly defend Abrams. And he did Boyega and especially Tran the dirtiest.
True all day long – Finn was actually the most interesting character in the new trilogy. Abrams and Kennedy also has to take heat for this – he wrote the scripts and oversaw the casting and she was exec producer. This was the story he wanted to tell and Disney let him, knowing how big a deal with was for John to be in a lead role.
Rogue One is by far the best of the new movies- even with the director changing halfway through filming. Solo wasn’t that bad, esp compared the to main trilogy which was a MASSIVE ripoff of the original ones.
‘Rogue One’ is one of the best in the whole series. I LOVE that film. It takes all the fanboys whining about diversity and female leads and shoves it down their throats.
I blame what happened to all the characters of color on JJ Abrams. He basically sidelined everyone but the white characters and gave meatier roles to his white bros than Tran. Unpopular opinion is that Abrams basically destroyed the trilogy for me with that crappy 3rd film. The 2nd film of the trilogy was really the only quality film of the bunch
I agree with your last sentence – the 2nd file, which was NOT directed by him, was the better of the 3. Its like the original series, the best ones were the ones not directed by Lucas.
The second film was the worst of the bunch and was where the Finn sidelining began. JJ gave Finn a great setup in the first film. But Rian decided to separate Finn from the main trio and send him off on an entirely pointless mission that kept him away from the main action for the whole movie. The last movie brought the three back together but still didn’t give Finn enough to do and sidelined Tran. Overall the trilogy was a mess– only the first movie was any good.
I agree with you, Smices. The 2nd film wasn’t awful. I didn’t hate it, but it’s not one I rewatch either. That film sidelined Finn, turned Poe into some hothead, who was responsible for the destruction of half the fleet. That idiotic Force bond between the villain and the hero. The last movie was better for bringing the Trio back together as they should have been from the beginning. It had to retcon a lot, but JJ definitely screwed KMT out of her rightful place in the final film and gave Finn little to work with.
The issue with the 2nd film was that Johnson was trying to take the plot away from the original trilogy ripoff that Abrams setup – he failed miserably with it, not sure he was the correct choice to do it. I would have loved to have seen a new plot for the whole trilogy but Disney and Kennedy played it far to safe. From what i recall Abrams was never supposed to direct the 3rd one but was brought in to rescue the films after the 2nd was badly received and triggered the fanboys. Bringing the Emperor back was aimed solely at the fanboys.
The only good thing Abrams did was set the franchise up to move beyond the Skywalkers and Solos. Its so much more than 3 main characters. The Mandalorian has proven there is an appetite for the expanded universe.
I actually did like the 2nd one – while I thought it could have been better and yes there was so many things wrong I liked that it tried to go somewhere different from the first one. As I say it was badly executed, then again the other 2 were as well.
I was not a fan of the The Last Jedi and I would still not call it worse than Rise of Skywalker. The latter film was such a hack job and an attempt to piece together incongruent storytelling for the sake of undoing the second film, shoehorning in unnecessary additions in the form of fan service (I see you, Palpatine) and ultimately trying to work around Carrie Fischer’s death.
Had a feeling this was coming.
I feel bad for him. He was obviously really excited when he started. I remember he said he asked to meet with RDJ for “mentoring” on being a blockbuster star. Ambitious!….but sadly ultimately unwarranted. After it all it seems the experience left him disappointed and bitter.
I think he’s clear with how he feels about where The Last Jedi took things but having seen all three I feel he’s being…ummm…generous…to JJ Abrams. But it’s his truth, he should speak it.
Pretty much most of the cast has in their own ways, made their feelings known about the Last Jedi – Mark Hamill has been vocal about it and the storyline of Luke.
Mark actually said he regretted those comments and he felt they were taken out of context.
He is absolutely right in his interview, but he does seem to have a blind spot for JJ Abrams. (I’m assuming because Abrams cast him.) TROS treated its characters played by POC horribly, by far the worst of the trilogy. Awfully coincidental that literally every character played by a POC was sidelined.
I love that Jon Boyega is taking a strong stance on racism in the industry. As we all contemplate the legacy and greatness of Chadwick Boseman, it’s become clear that America hungers for complex, nuanced, out black characters on its screens. I hope him speaking his mind actually leads to opportunities. I’d love to see him onscreen more.
I’ve only seen the final film once, and couldn’t even remember what happened to his character. That’s terrible, as he was my favorite part of TFA. He’s totally right to say all the characters of color were sidelined in the last film, it’s the truth. Those in charge of those decisions need to do better.
I really applaud him for speaking up this way and standing up for himself despite Disney being such a behemoth company. It’s not biting the hand that feeds him when it’s standing up for equality.
His comment about weariness really got to me.
When I say this, I mean not at ALL to minimize what John is recounting. However, this is another great reason why the SW producing/writing team really, really need to storyboard and have a plan or overarcing theme BEFORE they shoot ANYTHING. finn was supposed to be a Jedi, force-sensitive with no training and no ‘special’ ancestry. Even through The Last Jedi you could see that’s where it was going… the team up top dropped the ball so many ways, so many times. Add extra random characters and robots to distract that a major plot point was lost.
I had such high hopes for this trilogy and was very disappointed. I loved ‘The Force Awakens’. The way it was set up was that Finn was a lead character and his relationship with Rey was going to be at the center of that. Next film, he spends most of his time in some stupid fucking casino riding whatever the fuck those animals were. I understand that the chemistry between Rey and Kylo was strong but I don’t understand why they didn’t set it up with Kylo representing the bad side and Finn representing the good and Rey being caught in the middle. That’s what I was expecting in the second film. I haven’t even seen the third yet and I can’t believe I’m saying that. I just couldn’t be bothered because one of the most interesting characters had been benched.
Don’t get me started with what they did to Oscar Lucas. How the fuck do you have so much talent AND sexy and not use it?
Oscar Issac stole every scene he was in – Poe ‘the hair’ Dameron was criminally underused. He and Finn had such great chemistry that was never explored – Tumblr has some interesting ideas of where ‘that’ plot could have went. LOL
I’m a huge Poe/Finn fan although I’m not on Tumblr. I thought in TFA they were setting up a love triangle between Poe/Rey/Finn like in SW: A New Hope (Luke/Leia/Han). I think JJ Abrams took the paralleling the original trilogy too far.
JJ also catered to the Rey/Ben fans who are militant online in TLJ. Personally, I would have much rather watched Finn/Poe run around saving stuff like Han/Leia did in Empire. Although, Disney will never have a gay couple in SW. The only movie I loved was The Force Awakens. All others were meh. I say this as a huge SW fan.
I’m sorry, Oscar ‘Issac’.
He is so amazing! I especially love the part of the interview where you see photos of him modeling in clothes that cost thousands of pounds, that 99 percent of the human population will never be able to afford, and that were made in third world countries by a bunch of kids, whilst he declares “When black men grow out their hair it’s a very powerful thing,”, and complaining about starring is a movie where he was paid more that 99 percent of the population. Truly a great person.
That 99 percent of the population was looking forward to seeing a Black man as a major part of the Star Wars trilogy and instead they were let down. He’s perfectly entitled to feel some kind of way about that. I hate this idea that a Black man can’t talk about injustices unless he’s poor. It’s a pretty shitty POV.
That 99 percent that wanted a black lead in Star Wars got that with the first and second movies. Yes they screwed it up in the third one, but that is how shallow woke corporations work, they only push diversity if they can make a profit on it – they probably thought that Last Jedi did not make more money becasue they had diverse characters so they backtracked in Skywalker. Honestly, the fact that people are so obsessed with such frivolous movies is a problem in and of itself, and people should be encouraged to stop having a desire to hiper-identify with characters in movies or tv shows, especially since this hiper-identification is essentially gaslighting people so that major companies can suck money out of their wallets, the representation is mostly shallow, and many of the white kids that became so obsessed with stuff like this have grown up to be horrible people. And the issue is not that he can’t talk about this stuff because he is a rich black man, but becasue he is a rich man who is playing the same game plenty of white rich men and women have played,. He talks about injustice, but does so in one of the most elitist magazines in the world, whilst promoting clothing that only the elites can afford.
You are here to derail the conversation in order to dismiss what he’s saying. Congratulation, you are like most of the SW fan base who use this tactic to avoid change.
Look at his hair though! It’s glorious!
After such a promising launch, the rest of that trilogy was a narrative mess that did tremendous disservice to several characters (and the actors who played them) by lousy writing and lousy creative leadership. It was the worst of fanboy fan fiction.
He is absolutely right. I couldn’t believe how even oscar isaac didnt get much screen time. It was sickening to see people attacking him when it came out instead of the producers and director for Kelly Marie not getting much attention. I noticed that women and minorities are always told to suck it up but white men can demand a better pay/working conditions..etc the best recent example is Novak Djokovic. That cun¥ had the oddasity to tell female tennis players they shouldn’t ask for equal pay now and then turned to say men’s league should get some assistance to cover for covid crisis!!!
Have a feeling his character’s “I’ve got something to tell you, Rey” bit was edited out in editing for the last film. Didn’t close that story loop; very annoying. Glad he’s speaking his mind. Shows a lot of courage. Just because you’re grateful for career opportunities doesn’t mean you need to shut up, especially if you’re something of a representative for minority groups in your industry and in pop culture.
Is it just me, or is he kinda Denzel-y through the eyes??