Ahmed Best is best known for voicing the character of Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars franchise, playing the role for the first time in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Despite the backlash he received, he returned to voice the clumsy Gungan again, though with a twist, in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy. However, the actor also wants to play the role of Kelleran Beq again in a John Wick-like movie if given a chance.
Best first played Beq in the children's game show Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge and later in Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 3 Episode 4, Chapter 20: The Foundling. As it was the last time fans saw the Jedi Master, he wanted the Sabered Hand to be seen on the big screen the next time.
“I keep putting this out there. I want to do a Jedi John Wick as Kelleran Beq,” he told ComicBook. “And I don't even need to say any words. I just want to do two hours of lightsabers and people in the way.”
As a highly skilled Jedi Master, he was proficient at Jar’Kai, a method where he could wield two lightsabers at once. He, too, could use the Force, which he showed by levitating the rocks, and even communicate with it. However, Best claimed that only one percent of Beq’s ability was seen in The Mandalorian, and there was still so much more he could give.
“I was just talking about this, the style that influences Kelleran Beq is from Filipino martial arts, and nobody really knows very much how deep those arts are,” he continued. “Most of the Jedi are Japanese Samurai influenced, but the Filipinos beat the Samurai, and they beat the Spanish.”
The actor continued praising the Filipino martial arts and wanted this move to be highlighted through a Jedi story. However, it remains to be seen if he will have his own Star Wars movie or appear in the franchise’s future projects again as Beq.
Ahmed Best Addresses Star Wars’ Jar Jar Binks Backlash
Meanwhile, Best addressed the Jar Jar Binks backlash while celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace, which saw its return to theaters over the weekend. Binks made history by being the first main character in a feature live-action movie created by motion-capture technology. However, the character still received negative feedback, and Best even experienced harassment from fans, so he stopped working for a while after the movie’s release.
“Everybody came for me,” he told People. “I'm the first person to do this kind of work, but I was also the first Black person, Black man.”
So, though the film earned over $1 billion at the box office worldwide, he was still “ostracized” from doing the same motion-capture work, thanks to that widespread criticism. He even called the online hate, which grew after the film’s release in May 1999, “the first textbook case of cyberbullying.”
“It really wasn't easy,” he continued. “I was very young. I was 26. And it's hard to have this idea that the thing you've been working all your life for, you finally get it and you're finally in the big leagues and the highest level of the game, and you hold your own.”
Sadly, the negative reviews resulted in Jar Jar Binks being removed from the two Star Wars prequels, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Though he saw literature that claimed his character ended up being a homeless clown, he believed it wasn’t Jar Jar Binks’ fate and wanted to give the character a proper closure.
“I would love just for there to be some really good closure, just to know what happened to Jar Jar,” he added. “And then I don't think it needs to be tragic.”
LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is set to be released on September 13, 2024, on Disney+. As Best is now ready to play Jar Jar Binks again, he may hopefully get a chance to reprise his role as Beq and show what this Jedi Master really got.
