for the roles of finn and other new "star wars" characters for "the force awakens", director j. j. abrams intentionally looked for unknown actors, as he wanted audiences "to meet these characters [in the film] and not feel like it’s him from that thing, it’s her from that thing." boyega, who had impressed abrams in his debut role in british sci-fi film "attack the block" (2011), was invited to audition for the role of finn, a process which lasted seven months before he was finally cast. kathleen kennedy, one of the producers of "the force awakens", stated: john boyega was somebody we'd known of because of "attack the block". and we'd been sort of putting him on the top of our list right from the beginning. but, then again, we went on a massive search just to see who was out there, and we kept coming back to realizing that john would be the perfect finn.