Q&A: Actor Ahmed Best Discusses His Work as Jar Jar Binks for the "Light & Magic" Documentary Season 2

Actor, comedian, musician, and director Ahmed Best is best known for his role as Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and in the new season of the Disney+ documentary series Light & Magic he has the chance to talk about that period of his life and career. This week Laughing Place was invited to participate in a press conference in promotion of Light & Magic season 2, during which Best commented on what it was like reliving that tumultuous time.

Ahmed Best started off by thinking back to when much of the footage used in season 2 of Light & Magic was actually shot. “Because the cameras were so ubiquitous, you kind of forgot that they were there. We were just doing our jobs. And I think what [director Joe Johnston] captured so wonderfully was– and I was thinking about this, because I just directed a video game that came out today, which was all performance capture– I was thinking about what performance capture directing is and how we really created that during Phantom Menace. I think what’s really special about this documentary is that what you see us doing are two very important things when it comes to this: that's being in service of the story and having respect for each one of us, what we do, and how we do it. And that comes from the top– that came from George [Lucas], and I think what you see in this documentary is George actually giving us the respect to be the best we can be in within his constraints, and all of us realizing that we have to rise to that occasion because our job is to be in service to this story. I think this documentary captures that beautifully.

Best went on to talk about the mixed reaction to seeing Jar Jar Binks on screen after The Phantom Menace was released. “In 1999, there was such a huge shift in moviemaking just in general, when digital was coming up. So there were a lot of people who were very resistant to this idea that digital filmmaking was actually going to take over filmmaking. And then there was also this idea that these digital characters are going to take away from real life live-action characters, right? It's kind of the same conversation we're having about artificial intelligence right now. That was happening in '99 as well, and so there were a bunch of vested interests in this thing not working, just because of the overall feeling of what was changing. We were moving from the 20th century into the 21st century– everybody was lamenting about Y2K. I mean, I remember my father collecting nickels and putting them in the basement. [laughs] So there was this real big change happening, and when someone like George Lucas, who is a futurist– one of the reasons why I do the futurist work I do is because of George Lucas, who knows that we have to move forward in these ways– when that person comes in and pioneers the way he comes in, there's going to be pushback. And Jar Jar was a perfect lightning rod for that pushback, but George also said to me, “20 years from now, it's gonna be a different story." He said it to me at the time, and it was hard to deal with, but looking back now, he was absolutely right."

“It's a completely different story now, and obviously motion capture has become such an incredibly massive part of filmmaking. You know, one of the things that was tough for me when the whole backlash happened with Jar Jar, was the fact that the thing that was overshadowed was the work. All of us were in this for the work, and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was this wonderful bubble where a bunch of really geeky, artsy people from different parts of the world, but with the same heart, got together and made something really special. We were really focused on making the ‘really special,’ and when it came out, we were all excited about the ‘really special.’ So the hard part about it for me was not being able to continue that really special work. I really wanted to be integral in where motion capture was going because I saw the potential of it. I got so excited by not only the technological advances of it, but the art involved, and watching John [Knoll] and Rob [Coleman] create software that was based off of the input of what I performed. I just saw this entire world open up that had tremendous amounts of potential, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to contribute in the way that I wanted to contribute because of the backlash, and that was hard. I always like to say Jar Jar walked so Gollum could run and then Navi could fly."

Visual effects animation director Rob Coleman also piggybacked off of what Best had brought to the conversation. “Ahmed said earlier [that] we were in this bubble, and that's the truth. I was in a bubble, and once I got over having my conversation with George about my stress and could I do the movie and he told me to relax. Then my focus was 100% on George. Now I have my own personal feelings about how far we were going [with Jar Jar], and George is pushing me beyond where I thought we should be with the performance. So I listened to him, I took the note to the animators and we dared to be dopey. It was always from Ahmed's performance forward, but that really was the thing where I was like, ‘OK, I'm feeling uncomfortable, but I'm now showing the work to the director [and] he's loving it; he's responding well. I trust him completely. I'm working for the Jedi Master."

All three episodes of Light & Magic season 2 will be released tomorrow, Friday April 18th, exclusively via Disney+.

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