Speaking to Radio Times earlier this week after accepting his well-deserved BAFTA Rising Star Award, Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ John Boyega talked briefly about fan fascination with a possible romance between Finn and Poe.
Referencing a recent Twitter video of him working out while Oscar Isaac watches, Boyega explained, “What’s so funny, I posted a video the other day of myself working out, skipping, and in the background Oscar is just like, ‘Yeah baby go on!’ and people just went crazy.”
Boyega doesn’t know if those enthusiastic shippers will find what they’re looking for in Episode VIII, but he also wouldn’t put it past the franchise:
But as far as I’m concerned, when J.J. [Abrams] sat us down to go through the script, it was a bromance. But now I’m learning what Mark Hamill said before when he didn’t know that Darth Vader was Luke’s father: you never know what they’re going to pull. I’m looking at the director Rian [Johnson] closely so he can get me involved early, so I can prepare myself. So who knows?
As Maddy wrote earlier this year in her piece on fandom vs. canon, I’m not optimistic that this new trilogy will bring us the queer representation we’re looking for—but I am very appreciative that Star Wars‘ new male leads are willing to talk sincerely about the possibility of their characters being queer, or admit that they were ‘playing romance’ with each other as actors, without having to couch their comments in humor or reiterate their own heterosexuality. Their support obviously isn’t a replacement for explicit in-text representation, but it’s still awesome.
Thoughts?
(via TheNerdyBird.com, image via Disney/Lucasfilm)
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