Page 61 - 2018 Powerlist

John Boyega
Actor

From relative unknown three years ago to one of the most Media, Publishing& Entertainment
recognised stars on the planet, John Boyega’s rise has been
nothing short of meteoric.
The 25-year-old’s ascent to superstardom came when
director JJ Abrams hand-picked him to play the lead role
of Finn in the blockbuster Star Wars reboot The Force
Awakens. It became the third highest grossing movie of all
time, with worldwide box office takings of £2billion.
This summer he is set to star in Oscar-winning director
Kathryn Bigelow’s long-anticipated new movie Detroit,
based on the US city’s 1967 riots. Opening in the States in
August, the film stars Boyega as a motel security guard
caught up in the violence.
It is a far cry from John’s early days in Peckham, south
London. He grew up in social housing across the road from
where schoolboy Damilola Taylor was murdered in 2000 just
before his 11th birthday. John started acting when he was
nine, but kept it a secret from his classmates and friends on
the estate who were more interested in football.
He went on to study at the Identity School of Acting in
Hackney and starred in a handful of plays before landing a
role in Becoming Human, a web spin-off of the BBC Three Ade Adepitan
show. In 2011 he earned a guest spot on Law and Order UK
which was followed by him being cast as the lead in his first TV presenter and Paralympic wheelchair
feature film, Attack the Block. basketball player
This year he starred in techno-thriller The Circle alongside
Tom Hanks and Emma Watson and in December he will
hit our screens once more in the eighth instalment in the From wheelchair basketball star to Paralympics co-host and
Star Wars franchise, The Last Jedi. Earlier this year he won hard-hitting documentary maker, Ade has huge success in
plaudits for his London stage return in George Buchner’s every field.
seminal working-class tragedy Woyzeck at the Old Vic. Having survived polio as a youngster, he went on to
John also co-runs a production company with his agent become a medal-winning sportsman, taking part in the
Femi Oguns called Upper Rooms Productions, which will Sydney 2000 Paralympics, scoring a bronze medal at the
co-produce the sequel to Pacific Rim, Maelstrom, in which Athens Olympics in 2004 and gold at the 2005 Paralympic
he will also star. World Cup in Manchester. He has more than 90 caps for
Great Britain and continues to take part in international
tournaments. Many will remember him well from the CBBC
series XChange and the BBC ‘dancing wheelchairs’ idents.
In the past year he has hosted Children In Need
alongside Graham Norton, fronted coverage of the 2016 Rio
Paralympics and the Invictus Games.
His powerful news short last autumn for Channel 4’s
Unreported World, Vietnam’s Toxic Legacy, has now had
more than 10 million views. He also continues to present the
BBC Travel Show which has a global audience of around 80
million people.
Ade frequently investigates controversial and
ground-breaking stories for Channel 4’s award-winning
documentary series Dispatches. Recent episodes have seen
him confronting the UK benefit system’s personal disability
allowances. Other documentary work includes Ade
Adepitan: Journey of my Lifetime, which saw Ade return to
Nigeria, the place of his birth to explore the continuing Polio
epidemic there.
Ade received an MBE in 2005 and was awarded Honorary
Doctorates from Loughborough University in 2006 and the
University of East London in 2010.
In 2012 Ade opened the Ade Adepitan Short Break Centre –
a community centre in Brent for young people with learning
difficulties and physical disabilities.

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