Imagine, if you will, working with George Lucas on a new character for a film in the Star Wars franchise. During the project, you borrow key parts of your life and personality — including a character and voice that you use to read stories to the children in your family — as a basis for the character's template.
Then envision, once the film hits theatres, being subjected to a backlash over your character that is worse than any other in the franchise history. That is the story of actor Ahmed Best, who was heavily involved in the shaping of the Jar Jar Binks character.
In this interesting interview, Best talks about everything from the generally poor audience reaction to Jar Jar Binks, which he admits to taking personally, to meeting Michael Jackson and getting the cold shoulder from him over Issues de Jar Jar, and even the lollipop Jar Jar that went down in horrific movie merchandise history. Said Best,
"The worst one was a lollipop dispenser, that was ridiculous, I saw that thing and ran. That was bad, the head of marketing actually called me to apologize for that one."
Via i09