Jar Jar Binks Was So Terrible That the Guy Who Played Him Almost Killed Himself

Jar Jar Binks, the CGI character from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, is one of the worst characters not just in the Star Wars franchise, but in the history of cinema. On top of being the most annoying comic relief character in a franchise that has bickering robots and killer teddy bears, Jar Jar is also a racist stereotype. Under his CGI exterior lies a minstrel show caricature you wouldn’t be shocked to see Al Jolson playing.

The backlash against Jar Jar Binks was immediate, it was harsh and it’s lasted for nearly 20 years. Ahmed Best, the actor who provided Jar Jar’s voice, shared on Twitter tonight that playing the character negatively impacted his career and the negative response to the character led him to contemplate suicide.

Now, I’m sure Ahmed Best is a nice guy and I’m glad he didn’t kill himself. And he didn’t deserve to be attacked personally, which did happen. Best told Wired last year that he “had death threats through the internet. I had people come to me and say, ‘You destroyed my childhood.’ That’s difficult for a 25-year-old to hear.”

You know, it’s possible to hate a character in a thing without personally attacking the person playing the character; if you’re going to attack an actor personally, make it someone who deserves it like Kevin Spacey or Amber Heard.

Which is not to say you shouldn’t critique an actor’s performance if they deserve it. But you have to know the difference between a bad character and a bad performance, because the two are sometimes unrelated. In Best’s case, the fault almost certainly lies with director George Lucas who got horrible, wooden performances out of all of his actors. Seriously, Hayden Christensen was nominated for a Golden Globe for the film he did before Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. For acting. Even Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman had less than stellar performances under Lucas’s direction.

So be nice to Ahmed Best, he didn’t ruin your childhood; George Lucas ruined your childhood by being a terrible director and for making Greedo shoot at Han Solo.