Ahmed Best

“When George Lucas said, 'I want you to be the template for this new character,' that was a huge responsibility.”

“I'm a Black man from the Bronx who is now a Jedi. It's a very, very big deal.”

“I'm the first person to do this kind of work, but I was also the first person to get bullied for it.”

“The love is really overwhelming and very moving. So I'm just so gracious, and the love I get from 'The Mandalorian' is just as much.”

“Kelleran Beq is the culmination of my life's work.”

“Jar Jar is bigger than me, Jar Jar is bigger than all of us.”

“It's taken me 20 years to really start to feel good about the work that I did.”

“Surviving is a Jedi trait, and some of the things that I've survived in my life are some of the things that Kelleran Beq has survived.”

“I want this to be a lesson in how to treat people.”

“20 years next year I faced a media backlash that still affects my career today.”

“Art is a conversation. It’s not a monologue.”

“It's really difficult to articulate the feeling... you feel like a success and a failure at the same time.”

“I had to start my life all over again. It was a very, very dark time.”

“I was an artist, and I was giving a gift. And if you don't like it, you don't like it. That's fine.”

“I would say to him, 'As a black man, we don't have a lot of chances to be in these movies at this level.' It was my chance to be a hero.”