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- Lupita, you've worked with Jordan Peele,
Steve McQueen, Mira Nair,
I think a lot of filmmakers
who have been underrepresented in the past in Hollywood.
Are you making these choices specifically
to work with directors like that
or is it just the roles you've been drawn to?
- I think these are all directors
who have offered me the most interesting roles
and I've taken them.
And haven't really thought,
yeah, I haven't really thought about
the demographic of the director I've been working with.
I think because
I am a black woman
and so this industry,
this time, this Me Too time,
this Time's Up time
is about allowing for more equitable representation
and I am benefiting from the efforts
of a lot of other women
who have come before me,
other black women who have come before me,
who have had it a lot rougher than I have
and I'm aware of that.
It's a time when directors like Steve McQueen
and Jordan Peele are being given chances to make work
and so they are able to then,
in Jordan's case, write with someone like me in mind
for their next film.
And for me, I think,
this is a time where there's a concerted effort
to consider diversity and inclusion.
What I really want
is for it to not be a fad,
not be a trend.
- People shouldn't be trends.
- Right now, it's really dope and cool
and on trend to work with women and underrepresented groups
but I think the moment of maturity in the industry
is when it is just the norm,
when you no longer need to ask that question.
- Right yeah.
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When were you most afraid or intimidated by a role
and how did you overcome it?
- I would say that the last film Us
terrified me quite a bit.
- And the audience.
- Like Renee said, I feel the same way.
Every time I work,
I wonder whether I have what it takes
to do that particular role
because we're in a business
where we're always starting again.
You start with ignorance with every role.
And the preparation is about
moving from that ignorance
to hopefully a sense of expertise
by the time the film wraps.
But with Us, I had to play two characters in one movie
and I had the time it usually takes me
to prepare for one
and these two characters
are diametrically opposed to each other,
they are individual but they're also two entities
that ultimately are one.
So that was a challenge
just in terms of how to organize it in my head
and how to make them distinct
and yet feel like two parts of one entity.
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- I'm curious if you've ever had an experience
where the actor you had to work across from
wasn't giving you what you needed
or it just wasn't really vibing the way it needed to,
how you dealt with that?
You don't have to name names.
- I just watched all the faces.
- If you had to work with an actor
and it just wasn't working.
- Yeah, it's interesting.
For me, I was trained in the theater
and so that's where I feel most at home
and film is something that I've been working on
for the last what, six years.
And what's interesting about film
is that you are at risk
I think more often of having
an actor that doesn't respond
because on stage,
it is the performers who are in charge of the magic.
Whereas on film,
there's other people in charge of the magic.
Yes, the performers do their thing
but then there's the editor
who ultimately is the one
that puts the performance together.
Then, it's the take.
- [Female] The camera.
- Yeah, the camera.
All these weird things
where you can't look at the person you're acting with.
You have to look at the X or something like that.
So all those things
get in the way
or make just human exchange
a little bit more challenging
and therefore I think
you are more likely to find moments with an actor
where things are not gelling
because there's so many other things to deal with.
So for me, that working on Us
was a lesson in how effective being self reliant can be.
It's almost like you have to control what you can
and then just let go
and trust that your scene partner, the editor,
will do the gluing.
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