I'm going to begin with you Rebecca.
I mean, I'm just reading you got this sort of remarkable
kind of personal connection to this story for your grandfather.
It's quite hard to believe what he kind of would have experienced
that level of fear that he would have felt of potentially being caught.
You know why he felt compelled to do that.
It's a million dollar question I wish I knew.
I mean, I have some.
I mean, I have more information now and even in the last year than I've.
Had for my
adult life.
And, you know, my mother has more information than she ever had also.
And there are some events, I think in his that
I find out in his sort of near history, some frightening things.
His his father was very much a very vocal.
Race man, you know, he was he spoke out
about the uplift of of the
black people after abolition and, you know,
there was this sort of moment of great hope and he was very
he was very vocal and outspoken and people near to him
black lost their lives because of that.
And so that was the environment that my grandfather grew up in.
So one can only imagine that there was a certain correlation between
black pride and danger.
There were, I mean, proof of that
something you had to kind of try and understand
through the character of Claire is such a so much complexity to this character,
what she went through and what she what was at stake.
And I mean, obviously, it's a challenge to it's a play about this.
But I imagine it must've been such an enjoyable challenge
because as as an actress, all you ever want
is kind of complex roles of nuance and stuff in this.
I mean, Claire has that and then some, you know?
Yeah, absolutely. Both Claire and Irene.
I mean, that's why it's a gift.
And that's why, you know, myself and Tessa [Thompson] felt truly blessed.
And you know, and
to be able to play these parts, but you know, and it
it sort of combines my two loves, you know, I love history and I love art.
And you know, whenever you know,
I read sort of contemporary history
of the time the novel was written 1926,
I want to sort of viscerally experience what it was like the smells,
the feelings, the interaction and acting is actually as close as you can get.
But we felt that very deeply on this. And
I don't know like looking at the film,
watching it now, I think we did.
We kind of touched on that.
But I will, you know, never truly understand
what it is to pass it.
Just it's it's not in my history and it won't be in my future.
So I had to sort of find parallels
with the idea of severing a part of yourself,
exiling yourself from your community,
all these different complex journeys
that Claire has gone on simply
to live the life she wants to lead,
which is one of freedom and having things freedom to be yourself.
And so
I don't know.
It was a very complex,
joyful journey, but also very emotionally quite draining.
In terms of connecting to to the road.
Because obviously, there's that moment when she kind of goes to that party
and she sort of suddenly you see her sort of face light up that she's around
a community and a culture that she maybe felt so distant from
Maybe he's of an age thing,
but you can you recall any moments you always or usually felt in tune
with your own kind of heritage and background as you kind of got older?
Because, I mean, my family heritage is Jewish.
And I never really kind of felt it much at school when I'm younger
and I remember it as a moment, even just like three years ago,
is that kind of family
and I sort I looked around and it just I suddenly felt like I belonged
into a kind of community that I hadn't felt before.
If that makes sense, I wonder if you guys have ever experienced that before.
Well, I've always been other, so always.
So that's sort of an easy access for me.
You know, when I'm half Ethiopian, half Irish and I was born in Ethiopia,
I lived in Ireland, did a lot of my schooling in London,
and so I've never really completely wholly belonged where I am.
So the other the outsider, you know, the Misfit,
all those kind of things I'm drawn to and I feel a kinship with.
So but in my response to
that was to cleave to my heritage.
So, you know, it's very important for me.
Both sides of my heritage are very important for me,
simply because other people were so vocal about it.
And you know, they I felt like all the people had so many opinions
and what I was allowed to be and their perspective
and their opinions were suddenly my reality.
And I really, really voluntarily reacted against.
That even more true when you become a public figure.
Yes, exactly. And
so it's complex.
It's complex,
but belonging is a very interesting subject.
And sometimes you find in the strangest of places
and I seem to have found it on film sets with wonderful artists.
Likewise, I said I was going to say, you sort of you.
Could you make that?
I mean, it's possible to make that community as well? Yes.
You know, I know in such a sort of tangible sense,
but I definitely relate to the thing you were saying about being a bit outsider.
I think people make a lot of assumptions about who I am and the sort of community
and, you know, British theater and I.
But I've also felt very at home in America and,
you know, this whole American side of my identity.
So and I never when I was.
You know, fancy schools in England and private schools
with all these are a country, country, folk and many drivers.
You know, that was.
You know, my American mother and me like getting to school in a taxi.
So it was like, is this
not fit in with anything? OK.
Yeah.
My final question.
I'm speaking to Andre [Holland] about this as well, which is,
I think obviously the notion of performance is such a big part of this.
But why is what I found quite striking is it's
not just the performance Claire puts on,
but I found that everyone's putting on a bit of a performance
performing this performative nature of being a good husband, a good wife,
a mother.
Do you think that in life we all performed?
Absolutely. That's what it is.
That's what the whole, the whole point of this movie.
Actually, I got it.
I think it as a much bigger kind of universal theme, you know?
And the thing is, it telegraphs the one who is who's
hiding her racial identity, but she's not hiding anything else about herself.
You know, she's she's actually expressing herself fully, even within a performance,
ironically, more so within a performance than anybody else in the movie .
Everybody else is very preoccupied with that social performance,
and they're not always they're not always matching up
what they think they believe and what they actually want.
And that, I think, is often true for many of us.
Yeah. Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
Best of luck with the film. Thank you ever so
Much. Take care. Bye bye.