'Media Backlash' Over Jar Jar Binks Led Actor to Consider Suicide

Jar Jar Binks is one of the most hated, and almost certainly the most widely ridiculed, character in the Star Wars universe. But there was an actor behind the character, Ahmed Best, who was just 25 at the time—and he recently revealed on Twitter that the negative reaction to Jar Jar led him to a very dark place. "20 years next year I faced a media backlash that still affects my career today," he tweeted alongside a picture of him and his son looking out over the ocean. "This was the place I almost ended my life. It’s still hard to talk about. I survived and now this little guy is my gift for survival." Last year, Best told Wired he got death threats and people told him he had destroyed their childhoods. He's now planning a one-man show for the 20th anniversary of The Phantom Menace, and wondered on his tweet if the effect of the character might be good subject matter for it. (More Jar Jar Binks stories.)