- Hi, I'm Jodie Turner-Smith.
- Hello I'm Daniel Kaluuya
and you're watching In Studio with Hollywood Reporter.
(upbeat music)
- We're here to talk about Queen and Slim,
which, for me, as soon as I watched the movie,
within the first minute, I was like,
"All right I'm in, I'm in."
this movie if phenomenal from top to finish.
I really, really enjoyed it.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- So I wanted to ask you.
You're both in almost every scene together
What did you do to prepare to inhabit these roles?
Did you spend any time together
or were you kind of coming in as your characters did,
just meeting each other?
- Well we spent a little bit of time together
like during the prep.
You know after,
'cause the first time we met was the chemistry read.
And after that, we definitely made a conscious effort
to reach out to each other and to talk
to each other and we met.
We met up and hung out
and then we got to New Orleans,
you know, Daniel would come round mine
or I would go to him and we would read,
you know, scenes together.
Which was really great because I had no concept
of what the workload would be like
once we actually started.
Cause I'd never been in anything
where you're on almost every page of the script,
together with someone.
So there was never a time after that point, really,
to rehearse.
- Yeah, we sat down
and we kind of just got to know each other.
I do remember the night before we started shooting
in Cleveland.
I went to her hotel room,
and what did we...
she taught me about alkaline water.
She put it down, I was so paranoid.
Now I thought, "Oh my God, I'm so acidic."
So I kinda...
We just got to know each other.
I think you have to be, just have to be open
and get on the same frequency.
- So you worked with two creative powerhouses,
Melina Matsoukas, the director,
and Lena Waithe, the writer and producer.
What did you learn from each of them?
Can you just tell me one thing that kinda stands out
that you learned from them?
- What stands out for me, I think,
for me is Lena's just force.
She's a very inspirational force.
How she has created a space for this to be so unapologetic
and so authored, and so singular,
is really inspiring to see
and I learnt a lot from that.
I learnt a lot from what you can ask from creativity.
And from Melina, it's just knowing how much she cares,
and seeing someone that's so particular
about every single inch definitely made me look at
the stuff I do, and made me go,
"Oh, I need to step up."
If someone is as forensic on two looks,
I had a lot of fittings over two looks,
that's not usually, for a man,
that's not usually a focus, do you understand?
So and she cared about everything.
Every bit of detail, every kinda haircut,
every kinda...
She'd call me randomly and be like,
"Yo, how are you growing your hair?"
Like, way months before the shoot.
And was like, "Yeah, make sure you don't cut it.
"This, this, that and the other."
She wanted it to be the best it can be.
- The biggest thing that I think I took from both
of them was just that they're two very powerful women
and they're aware of,
they really know who they are.
They really know who they are and they really speak that
into the spaces that they inhabit,
which I think is a very powerful thing
and I think, often, as women in different spaces,
we often feel like we have to make ourselves smaller
or we have to accommodate the spaces that we're in,
but they both have this boldness about who they are,
about their talent, this fearlessness,
that they speak into...
They speak their energy into the rooms that they're in
and whatever doing.
That's so powerful and I really, you know,
that was something that I really admired
and took as a lesson in really how to do that.
- Jodie, it sounds a lot like you're describing
the character that you inhabited in this movie.
How was it for that to be your first leading role?
- I mean, it was really special to be able to play a woman
as complex and fully formed,
and intriguing and interesting as Queen.
And she's definitely very much like some parts of Melina
and, obviously, Lena wrote the script
so there's gonna be her in that as well.
And I think that the collaboration that came from
when everyone, you know,
when you guys worked on the script as well,
and when Lena and Melina talked about it and everything,
there are so many elements in this script
that come from real conversations that they've had
amongst themselves.
And so there is that kind of element of they're in that.
But I think also, just as a black woman,
there's something, you know,
much of who Queen is, I think,
was an experience relatable to any black woman.
That she could look at that and say like,
"I understand who this woman is
"and why she ticks."
And I think that's why it was something that was so popular
when we all read it.
All of us in the community (mumbles)
and we're like, "Wow, this woman is
"so interesting and amazing"
and I think it's because as black women,
we could sort of relate to so much about her in that way.
I think there's a common thread in the experience,
in the struggle, in the desire to be excellent
and to carry yourself in a certain way to hide your pain
and things like that.
- Is there any particular scene that you're kind of excited
for the public to see?
Any of those great interactions that you have
as your two characters go on the run.
- For me, it's, I think, Uncle Earl's house is a sequence
that I just think is fascinating.
Uncle Earl is Queen's uncle in the film.
And it's interesting, someone did actually say,
the parallels of black masculinity
between Slim and Uncle Earl in the sense that
when you see him the most unhinged,
it's when he's under the influence.
And what he does when he's unhinged.
And people would see that man as the most
outwardly confident version of a black man.
And having someone like Slim who's very simple,
very content, very vulnerable in this film,
but shows this strength in that he shows up for Queen
in the film.
And those parallels, and Queen being in the center of it,
do you understand?
And understanding of why Queen,
I just had this thought now,
why Queen is the way she is because of the men
she's been exposed to,
do you understand?
And she's just probably assuming (mumbles)
probably assuming that "Well, you ain't nothing anyway,"
do you understand?
I find Uncle Earl as a study of black masculinity
and the parallels it has with Slim, fascinating.
Just really fascinating sequence.
- Let's talk a little bit about the politics of the movie.
I don't want you to have to speak for your entire nation,
but as to British people,
what is your experience with police officers in the UK?
Do you have similar experiences that Americans do?
- I can only speak for me.
This is something I intimately know, not logically know.
And this is stuff that, like,
to the point where being stopped and searched as a kid,
I feel like was normal.
I thought this was everyone.
It happened to everyone around me.
And then only being a man and looking back, go "Oh."
And friends opening up about their stories
and going, "That's a bit weird that they got kicked
"in that position."
- And I, you know,
I really did do, as well, a lot of research
on policing in America
and policing of the black man in America
because when you really dive into it,
you learn so many things.
Even why police were formed in this country,
which was as a tool to catch slaves.
And how you see the connection,
because, you know, obviously there's certain nuances
that are specific to this country
that we're talking about specifically.
I definitely think that, as a black person living anywhere
in the world, you understand oppression,
you understand state violence,
you understand all of those things 'cause that's happening
all over the world.
And whether it's happened to you personally,
you understand it logically.
- Your characters are folk heroes.
That they kind of are part of a long tradition
of the American folk hero.
Daniel, you spoke a little bit about Angela Davis.
Daniel, is there any folk heroes that inspired you
as you took on this role?
- No.
No.
It was more just, kind of,
I wanted to feel as human and as grounded and as everyman
as possible.
I think that...
I don't think he, I genuinely don't think Slim believes
he is a hero or can be a hero.
He even says it, he goes,
"I ain't gonna bend the world.
"I just want a lady that remembers me fondly."
Do you know what I'm saying?
He's a rare...
He's a person that isn't pushed into the forefront
in this day and age 'cause he doesn't want much.
He doesn't want the attention,
he doesn't want the limelight, the spotlight,
and that's such an incredible candidate
to be in this situation
because he's just trying to survive.
- Where are you going?
- I'ma find somebody with a phone so I can call my family.
- If you do that then they'll know where we are.
- Great.
- What if they kill us? - Don't say that!
- There's no guarantee they won't!
You're a black man that killed a cop
and then took his gun.
- I'm not a criminal.
- You are now.
- Congratulations, Queen And Slim.
Beautiful movie, check it out.