JAR JAR BINKS
How the original Gungan, AHMED BEST, went from the fandom menace to returning hero
If you thought we wouldn’t speak to Ahmed Best, the man behind the most beloved character in Star Wars history, about his Disney+ game show, Jedi Temple Challenge, you thought wrong. It’s demanded by the gods!
“HEESA BACK!” After years in the Star Wars wilderness, Ahmed Best — the artist formerly known as Jar Jar Binks — has returned to the galactic fold. The actor, who provided the voice and motion capture of the much-maligned Gungan in the prequel trilogy, was announced as the presenter of Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge, a Crystal Maze-esque game show for kids that is coming soon to Disney +.
The show marks the latest stage in a rehabilitation that saw Best go from Bigger
Villain-than-palpatine to beloved prodigal son via a terrifying brush with attempted suicide. After a “wonderful experience” shooting Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, Best’s troubles started when the trailer dropped on 13 November 1998. The then 25-year-old actor received all colours of hate for Jar Jar (he was alternately dubbed as a racist stereotype, a floppy-eared klutz and a poor excuse to flog toys), foreshadowing the kind of toxic abuse that drove Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran offline. But in a pre-social media world, the backlash, which began with then new-fangled websites like Jarjarmustdie.com, turned Best/binks into a whipping boy for Episode I.
“That’s when my life really changed,” says Best. “As well as the ubiquity of the dissemination of information, my phone number and address was leaked to the internet. I was getting attacked online — ‘You ruined my
childhood!’ — and getting death threats. Making the film I was just trying to do my best and not get fired. I was hurt by it and it put me in a very heavy depression.”
Things came to a head when Best, taking a favourite walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, stepped over the barrier and considered ending his life. A gust of wind blew him off balance and in that instant he chose to cling on. Best only made the revelation in a tweet in 2018, nearly 20 years after the incident happened.
“That wasn’t my best day,” he levels. “Depression is an extremely relative thing. What seems huge to some people feels small to other people. The hardest part about it was thinking I was strong enough. That’s why I sat on the story of how it affected me for so long. It affected my career, affected me tremendously. Now I’m at an age where I am not embarrassed to talk about it.”
But, as the years rolled on, the kids weaned on Binks were now coming of age as writers, bloggers and con-goers, and the negative tide towards the character began to change — a positive affection that was reinforced when Best attended a 20th anniversary Phantom Menace panel at Star Wars Celebration in May 2019, to the warmest reception imaginable.
“To be honest, I was afraid to jump on that emotional rollercoaster again,” he says of the panel. “But I did it and it was great. I hadn’t let myself feel good about Star Wars in a very long time. All I knew was how to fight Star Wars people, but I stopped fighting at Celebration. Celebration changed me.” Best — who describes himself as “not a convention person” — has since attended another Star Wars fan convention.
Best’s relationship with the franchise is still “complex”, he says. “Star Wars is very different now. It was very few and far between that you could be in a Star Wars show. Now you can have a Star Wars career in a lot of different iterations. A career that spans decades. Disney opened up an entire range of possibilities for people to be a part of it. Now we can tell stories in parts of the galaxy we don’t know. It’s a beautiful thing.”
He is currently writing a one-man show about being the most famous J.J. (sorry, Mr Abrams) in the galaxy, which is helping the healing process. As is Jedi Temple Challenge. “Throughout my history, positive or negative, it’s always been kids who have been consistently uplifting to me,” he says about why he took the show. “With this, I could really give back to the kids in this large, massive way.”
It’s been a complicated route back to redemption — but some things, it seems, are even more complicated than the taxation of trade routes.