Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best explains how fan negativity nearly led him to suicide

The recently released second season of the Disney + docuseries Light & Magic exalts in how advancing technology enhances all the shows and movies we love. But behind the 0s and 1s at the George Lucas-founded company Industrial Light & Magic are the people using their brains and their hearts to make it all happen. One comes away from this docuseries, part 1 directed by Lawrence Kasdanpart 2 by Joe Johnstontruly impressed with the creativity brimming from a group that may seem, at first, like just a bunch of computer jockeys.

A great deal of the second episode of the second season is devoted to a potentially controversial topic among the hardcore fan set: the genesis and reaction to Jar Jar Binks.

The daffy, clumsy Gungan was a major breakthrough for computer-generated characters, but audience reaction was (and this is an understatement) mixed when he first hit screens in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace. Indeed, some members of the press were so eager to throw rocks at the pure-of-heart Jar Jar, they forgot that he represented the hard work of actual people.

While industry vet George Lucas shrugged off negativity with ease, remembering how people felt C-3P0 was “annoying and stupid” in the first Star Warsand saying that “80% of people in the movie business get trashed (by the press),” that was cold comfort for ILM’s Rob Coleman and, more devastatingly, the young actor Ahmed Bestwhose voice and performance capture was transformed into what we see onscreen.

With a degree of emotion, Best recalls, over 25 years later, how hurt he was by the negativity. Press junkets came with loaded questions about his background, early websites were devoted to hating Jar Jar, and there were misinterpretations about the character’s intentions.

“I thought it was my fault,” he said. “I was 26. What should have felt like the beginning of something quite wonderful felt like the end.”

He then detailed how on an unusually still and quiet night in New York City, he ended up on the Brooklyn Bridge, not even remembering how he got there.

“I just remember myself on the outside of the bridge, leaning on one of the big pillars,” he recalled. “I see the Statue of Liberty, and what I think to myself is, ‘I’ll show every single one of them what y’all did to me. I’m gonna make every one of you feel what you did to me.'”

Luckily, fate, or something, intervened.

“I’m leaning on the bridge and I’m getting closer and closer to just going — just being free of all the talking and people,” he shared. “Then out of nowhere, WHOOSH, a gust of wind blows at me.”

He continued, “I lose my balance and I grabbed onto the side of the bridge. Then I laughed to myself, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?'”

He explained that suddenly he got very scared, which was good. “I got happy that I was afraid,” he said. “It meant that I wanted to live.”

He concluded that “the lesson that was learned for everyone who does CGI characters now is to talk about the actor — not just the character, like the actors don’t exist.”

As Lucas predicted to a down-in-the-dumps Coleman, 10-year-olds in 1999 would grow up to be adults to claim Jar Jar as their favorite character. And indeed this has happened. The sequence in Light & Magic concludes with Best being celebrated at a current Star Wars convention.

But there’s another tidbit of information. Even back when the Star Wars prequels came out to heavy criticism in some quarters, all agreed that the lightsaber fight between Yoda and Count Dooku in Episode II — Attack of the Clones was (in the parlance) epic. Turns out that Best was clutch in helping that all come together.

Lucas gave the effects team little guidance other than “you’ll think of something” and “like the Tasmanian Devil” when describing how Jedi Master Yoda, whom we’d never really seen move before, engages in battle. While Coleman was scratching his head, Best, a martial artist, invited him “back to the crib” and fed him videos of anime, Bruce Lee movies, and, specifically, Swordsman II starring Li. Seeing the way the samurai jumped and spun around was the inspiration Coleman needed.

And Best also made him promise we’d get a cool-looking shot of Yoda taking his fighting stance, which inspired one of the biggest audience cheers when the movie came out.

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Check out the trailer for season 2 of Light & Magic below.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.