If you ask any Star Wars fan what they hated most about the prequels they’ll most likely tell you it was Jar Jar Binks. A lot of hate was directed at him and he was essentially the lightning rod for the creative flaws in The Phantom Menace, he was so hated a film critic (Daniel M. Kimmel) published a collection of 42 essays titled Jar Jar Binks Must Die. That’s pretty heavy stuff, considering no one even thought to ask how Ahmed Best, the guy who was cast as the infamous Gungan, felt about all this criticism – or essentially being labeled as Star Wars fanboy's 'Public Enemy No. 1'.
In a recent interview with Jamie Stangroom, a YouTuber who presents a series called Are These The Actors You’re Looking For where he talks to cast members big and small from the film, he and Best discuss his time on set and the fallout from the negative reaction Jar Jar Binks caused. In the interview he reveals that:
“Star Wars was my first ‘most hated’ title in anything really. It was painful. 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.
We bet you feel bad about wanting him dead now don't you?
And it wasn’t just the negative fan reaction either, whilst all the cool merchandise was most likely reserved for the likes of; Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman, Best had to settle for this...
We’ll leave you to make up your own mind on this one
According to him:
"The worst one was a lollipop dispenser, that was ridiculous, I saw that thing and ran. That was bad, the head of marketing actually called me to apologize for that one."
Look, we can all agree that The Phantom Menace was awful and the presence of Jar Jar Binks (and Jake Lloyd’s robotic acting) didn’t help its case, but spare a thought for Ahmed Best. He’s has to carry the baggage of one of the world’s most hated (and inadvertently offensive) fictional characters for the rest of his life. We can never forgive Jar Jar Binks but maybe, just maybe, we should cut him some slack.
[Via io9]
