photos and story by Morgen Schuler
This year imaginary Morgen took full advantage of the Comicon held at Seattle Convention Center last weekend. She fought the crowds and sore feet to spend time there every day and came back with some fantastic stuff to share. First up was the fabulous panel with John Boyega (ie Finn from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Attack the Block, The Woman King and They Cloned Tyrone among many other projects).
John left quite an impression on Morgen and the rest of the nearly packed room with his charm, easy-going attitude and mega-nerd knowledge of all things Star Wars. It was more than a pleasant surprise to spend an hour with him answering questions from fans and telling anecdotes about his time with the legendary cast of The Force Awakens. Below are a few highlights along with photos she captured along the way.
One of Morgen’s favorite stories (and one of John’s) was when he decided to take Harrison Ford for Nigerian food in his neighborhood in LA. The moment they got out of the car, the gathering of folks outside the restaurant immediately recognized and lovingly geeked out about him being in their neck of the woods. After stuffing themselves on amazing food, they got back in Harrison’s car, a very lavish one where one side of the backseat has extra legroom to stretch out (which John happened to be sitting in). A few minutes later his companion turned to him and in a very gruff voice said “I gotta stretch my legs, can we switch?” and started to climb over John to get in the more comfortable seat. Boyega re-enacted the scene with his eyes and body reacting with surprise at what exactly was happening and realizing no one would believe him if he tried telling the story later. The whole thing had the comicon crowd in stitches.
Later he told the crowd about the time he threw an entire production and even the higher-ups at Disney into chaos when he lost his highly-classified Star Wars script. He’d been moving into a new place during filming and quickly discovered he had some unexpected furry roommates (rats… it was rats) and had to move out into another place pretty quickly. Turns out he had been rehearsing and forgot the script that it slipped underneath the couch at his old rental. He went back to get it, but by that point it had disappeared. A little while later it popped up on Ebay and Disney’s folks descended like hyenas on prey to get it back. Thankfully all was forgiven, but holy crap that could have been bad.
One last bit of fun, the question was asked that if he went to an alternate universe an he got some kind of superpower, what would he want it to be? Teleportation was his answer because he could almost be in two places at once going to all the comicons around the states and abroad to meet with fans and get a chance to spend time with family and friends. While it may have been a bit of fan service, the crowd ate it up with a spoon. He went on to chat about his favorite video game characters, which robot was his favorite in the Pacific Rim series (he had a role of in the sequel of course) and which character did he love the most in Attack on Titan (yea, he’s a manga/anime nerd too, love it!) He could not have been more charming, warm and open to a big room full of adoring fans.
Be sure to check back for more posts from ECCC 2025 including a panel with the cast of Firefly!