John Boyega

John Boyega has been named the winner of the EE Rising Star Award for 2016.

Boyega can currently be seen in the lead role of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. He had his screen debut in the critically acclaimed BBC series Becoming Human and his first foray into feature films was playing the lead in cult sci-fi film Attack the Block which opened SXSW in 2011, collecting a plethora of international awards. From there he went on to star as the lead in HBO drama Da Brick directed by Spike Lee, was the lead in BBC film My Murder and filmed feature length drama The Whale alongside Martin Sheen. More recently he has starred in feature film Half of a Yellow Sun alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and several episodes of the hit TV series 24: Live Another Day. In 2014, he was the lead in Sundance Award Winning feature film, Imperial Dreams and provided the voice for Major Lazer’s animated TV series.

Other nominees in 2016 were: Taron Egerton, Dakota Johnson, Brie Larson and Bel Powley.