Ahmed Best played the character Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and other movies. He received a ton of backlash for the role.
Full Episode
You know this character Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars? Well, at one point he tried to unalive himself. And this is a true story. And it starts with this guy, Ahmed. And Ahmed's 24, he's an actor, and he works really hard. And one day in 1996, he's performing in this live show, Stomp. And he's doing his thing, and he's on stage, and he's killing it.
But what he doesn't know is that there's a casting director in the audience, and she notices what a good performer he is, and she also happens to be casting for the new Star Wars prequel that they're about to film.
And so later, she gets in touch with him, and they're on the phone, and she's like, hey, we're shooting this Star Wars prequel called Phantom Menace, and I would like you to audition for this alien character. And Ahmed's like... And so, boom, he goes out to Skywalker Ranch for the Star Wars audition, and he gets to meet George Lucas, and it's this whole crazy experience.
And George ends up loving Ahmed. He loved his audition, and so, bam, he gets the part. And suddenly, his life completely changes. He's going to suit fittings for the alien costume, and he's doing screen tests for this alien character no one's ever heard of called Jar Jar Binks. And Ahmed works really hard on this. He comes up with the movements. He comes up with the walk.
He comes up with the voice of the character himself. And so he ends up being both in the suit and doing the voice. And of course, he's super excited. I mean, he's loved Star Wars since he was a kid. And everyone's telling him his acting career is about to blow up. Plus, he's never been in a movie before. He's only done theater. So this is his first movie. And it's a f***ing Star Wars movie.
How cool is that? And so anyway, they shoot this movie and Ahmed does a great job playing the character. And before the movie comes out, his star is just rising. He's doing press with his co-stars and they're all on the covers of magazines. Well, technically it's Jar Jar on the cover, but still. And Ahmed can't wait for this movie to come out.
And so the world can see it and they'll see how great of a job he did. And he's like, man, this is going to change my life forever. Until... One night, right before the movie's release, Ahmed is watching a late night talk show, Conan O'Brien, and they're talking about the Phantom Menace movie.
And they're all joking, saying that this character Jar Jar Binks is gonna ruin the whole film because they had seen the character in the trailers and promos. Now, to be clear, Conan is only talking about Jar Jar, the fictional character, but it doesn't really matter because for Ahmed, it's hard not to take this personally. I mean, he worked hard on this character.
He invented the walk and the mannerisms and the movement. This is very much his character. But regardless, finally the big day comes. Star Wars Phantom Menace comes out in theaters. And Star Wars fans line up for hours to see this. And they get to the theater and they watch this movie and they see Jar Jar for the first time. And they are not happy. They're all coming out of the theater like, No!
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