I went in the room and the last thing I said to Steven was ‘if you're going to take me,
as like a serious candidate for this role, you have to acknowledge that she would be
Afro Latina.
It doesn't work any other way if you're not gonna do that, then just don't hire me.’
Going into it, of course you put all that pressure on yourself and you know there's
always the initial excitement when you get a job and then the absolute terror sort of
sets in.
But you know, it became very apparent, so I think the first sort of conversations I
had with Ken, he was just more interested, sort of asking me about my family or about
my experiences with growing up sort of on the border and he wanted us to sort of bring
our own lives to these roles and he really wasn't looking for an impersonation of his
parents, which was, you know, the greatest thing that you could have been told
The research was just watching so many interviews with these women and what they went through
and how powerless they felt because this just arrived on their doorstep and they never asked
for it and…
It was just such a beautiful gift really to be able to get to, you know, give voice to
them and to sort of show what it is that they went through.
I think we've seen so many stories from the north of Ireland that have always looked at
it from a very political lens and very paramilitary lens.
And you know these are, these are important films, but they're also sometimes the only
viewpoint you get of that, and so this was just such a beautiful role to actually show
the women of Northern Ireland.
All of those memories about crossing border checkpoints, you know, British Army with machine
guns, bomb scares in our town, bombs happening in towns that were only like fifteen, thirty
minutes away.
You know, when I was Jude's age, there were huge bombs in Enniskillen and Omagh and you
know these are things that you don't at the time it's just such a fabric of your life
and it's in the backdrop, always constantly.
You never really know how you absorbed that as a child.
I was very hesitant.
I mean my initial reaction was that's going to be cool and that's going to be a great
movie 'cause he makes beautiful films and then I was like I'm definitely not getting
that job so good luck to whoever does.
I mean those on screen, I mean, Rita doesn't look like me, the great Rita Moreno.
And that felt very limiting how we portray Latinas in the industry to me has felt very
limiting for a very long time.
So I didn't really see space in the world for me.
In fact, I've spoken on this recently, like when I first moved to New York, I moved when
I was nineteen and I was told by several different casting directors that I was ethnically ambiguous,
but I could not audition for Hispanic roles 'cause I was too black for that.
Oh God.
I was like, oh, Yikes, well that's fun, thanks, guys.
Uh, so only now am I really getting to explore this, not only this part of myself, but like
what does this look like on screen and how do we represent like Afro Latinas as part
of Latinidad on screen.
So that's what was really exciting.
And it's a great role that is, you know, dynamic, it's not one note, you know, Anita, she runs
the gamut of emotion, and those are the types of roles that I think all women want to play:
Dynamic women, women who you know, it's not just about being a strong woman like there
are nuances to strength.
You know there are going to be so many more stories told about Venus and Serena because
they are these, they're these kind of Greek characters, you know, right?
Jacobian, Shakespearean, August Wilson.
Like they're the reservoir that great writers will always go to, to tell a great story,
these two sisters who were excellent at what they did, competing against each other.
I mean, you know, it's easy, it's wonderful, everybody, every writer will want to go to
that.
But how many times are you going to have a story where the story concentrates on their
mother and so when I found out the truth of Miss Oracene,
which is that she was their coach, their mother, but she was their coach.
For me, it was so important that I be her voice.
Because I wanted the world, not just Richard Williams in that scene, but I wanted the world
to know who she was and I wanted her to have her say while she was alive.
I did not get to meet, Miss Oracene and I talked to her briefly, we were trying to arrange
her possibly coming to set but she wasn't able to come.
But what I did have were these recordings that my gem of a director Reinaldo Marcus
Green and Will Smith and Zach Baylin, our writer, they sat down with Miss Oracene and
just talked to her and really, they just let the recorder play and she just got to talk
about her life, which is a very rare thing.
And essentially I just listened to those recordings over and over and over again.
They were my music in the morning and my lullaby at night and yeah, that was that was a clay
that I used to build the character of Miss Oracene.
I met her when we were doing the press last fall couple months ago and she's a lovely,
lovely, lovely woman.
And she just said, you know, good job.
She's a woman of few words and my heart, just went, I was grateful.
I was happy.
I was not considering the significance of the film.
I don't dare go there, it's too big a thought.
I just read it and I knew that I would do it.
And I also prayed that I could land, find the way to that level of grief and remain
in a way that would respect that character and the human beings who suffer not just the
loss of a child, but grief and rage and guilt and sadness and don't know a way forward to
some level of healing.
We did a lot of laughing too.
All of us might understand that in between takes and between setups I mean these are
very funny actors.
There were times we would laugh till we were weeping, and then we knew when it was time
to just drop back in, you know?
As Martha would put it—dear Martha, nobody had to be called by their character name,
you know, let's just get on with it and do the job and they are family to me.
I went in the room and the last thing I said to Steven was ‘if you're going to take me,
as like a serious candidate for this role, you have to acknowledge that she would be
Afro Latina.
It doesn't work any other way if you're not gonna do that, then just don't hire me.’
That's how I saw this woman.
She was unapologetically black, Afro Latina, and it's a lived experience that, quite frankly
lives in the grey and it didn't have a voice and I saw a way through and honestly, if you're
going to make West Side Story, the point is to infuse new energy into it and offer any
perspective, and that's the way that I saw her for me, so yeah, that's what I did.
If men are the ones who are writing the stories, making the stories, giving green light to
the stories, then that's why we're not seeing beautiful, fully formed wide spectrum of what
it is to be a woman.
There are a lot of great roles in television.
But I think film leaves a lot to be desired, and I think I'm really understating that.
I think that I think it's actually shameful how film fails women in their portrayals.
We have so many movies that are about heroic male figures even now 2022.
And women are relegated to being plot devices in those heroic figure movies, heroic male
figure movies.
And that unfortunately still remains the same.
And I don't see the needle moving very much in that direction.
You know sometimes we're so limited by who we are and what we get to play, and I don't
think any of us, you know, stepped into this business to just be able to tell one story.
And I'm just so interested in telling stories from, you know, all over the place and that
represents so many people and uhm, yeah so I, I just feel that you know I love acting,
it's my passion but I also feel sometimes limited by it and I just yeah, I think hopefully
the next step is behind the camera too.
What we need are courageous producers.
And not just men.
Courageous women producers because sometimes it's women producers who are telling women
no.
It's not enough that we have the position, we have to change it.
We have to change it.
We can't replace, I said we can't replace domination with more domination.
We have to make room for each other, yeah.
So I just want to present that, I want to challenge women producers to when we write
these things to have the courage to produce them and put them out in the world.
No woman on this earth, not to even mention women of color 'cause I don't even know I
don't can't speak to that but second class citizen is what we know from the day one.
And it's like really, you know, OK, that's your point of view?
Feck off.
Forgive me.
Is that an acceptable way to say it in Britain?
Just feck off.
I remember being told 'cause I didn't have looks, you’re not pretty, this and that,
that you know when you're in your thirties.
I remember thinking wow go away from me.
Go now because everybody here I don't care what, actor, journalist, whatever we are we
know in our core who we are.
And if people think there isn't room for us feck off.
Sorry but that.
And aging is underrated because perspective.
Uh to Aunjanue’s point, she said it articulately and brilliantly.
We're going to keep fighting in performances like Ariana, Aunjanue, Catriona.
Are you kidding?
That can't be ignored.
No chance of it.
More writers, that the fact that more women are writing--women are the strongest creatures
on Earth, I'm sorry to be losing my mind here, but come on now, nobody is going to stop women,
forget it.
And so the writers, creative minds, collective energy together saying, excuse me, you don't
want to pay attention, you want it to be about male heroes, fine…
You do your boring thing forgive me, respect to men, good for you, hey, knock yourselves
out, enjoy your life.
But we have things to do too that are equally important and I just the chatter from everybody
else…
Go away, you know, go talk to somebody who doesn't have any purpose in their lives, God,
God bless them.
But you know.
How long have I been acting?
A long time, I've been acting a long time.
It's always an issue, you know it was an issue, but I'm very firm.
I'm very firm.
I say if you want my hair done, this is who I need to do it.
Ad I will do my own hair and I have done my own hair because I have experienced walking
into a hair and make-up trailer and just been invisible and I just refuse, I'm too old.
I refuse to go through that another day of my life.