-Gugu, hello, nice to meet you.
Thank you for coming on the show.
-Thank you.
-I know we're meeting through Zoom.
It's odd, but I bet you a lot of people are meeting through Zoom.
-I know. It's crazy.
This is it. This is how we live now.
-Yeah. This is it.
I was going to ask if you're in London,
but you're in Atlanta right now, right?
-I'm in Atlanta right now, yeah. I'm here.
I just restarted filming here on "Loki",
the show that I'm working on.
-Oh, "Loki," for Disney+. -Yeah.
-Disney Plu! -Disney Plu! Yeah!
-No one calls it that, but we can start that today.
-There we go. It's going to be a thing.
It's going to be a thing. -Were you a big Marvel fan
before joining the show? -You know,
I wasn't a massive fan.
I have to confess, I wasn't a huge fan,
but I did sort of binge all the shows before
starting this because, obviously,
it's inspired by a character from "Thor"
and there's all of the "Thor" movies,
so I got Disney Plu, and I sort of binged
on everything and caught up. So now I know what I'm doing.
-Many people have taken up hobbies while in quarantine,
and you posted these portraits that you painted on Instagram,
and they're gorgeous. You went from painting people
you know to painting portraits of the George Floyd
and Breonna Taylor and John Lewis.
-Yeah. -What inspired you
to paint their portraits? -Well, you know, I think,
like everyone, I just found the shifts that were happening
culturally, you know, post the murder of George Floyd
and all of the protests that ensued, and I was painting
every day anyway, and it was just such a shock,
and just such an emotional time.
Somehow, just being able to channel those emotions into art
just was sort of a way for me to process it,
I think, at the time. And then, you know,
just to be able to paint Breonna Taylor,
actually took that painting on a protest with me in L.A.
as a banner, and I wrote "Say Her Name" on the back,
and was able to actually auction those two paintings for charity,
for some social justice organizations as well.
-See? -Yeah,
it's took on a greater purpose.
-I read that when you're working as an actor
that you use music to help you prepare for roles.
Are you musical?
-You know, I like to sing,
and I did grow up playing the saxophone,
which was really a treat for me. I haven't played it for a while.
-Oh, I love the saxophone. That's so tricky.
What made you get into saxophone?
-Oh, my God. Well, I think, probably, Lisa Simpson
had a little bit to do with it. -For real?
-Yeah, for real. Just watching that show
And just seeing a young girl just playing the saxophone,
I was like, that is so cool. I want to do that.
It's possible. And I just was so inspired by her.
-Wow! -Yeah.
And I grew up listening to all the jazz divas,
the greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday,
and I never really saw any female saxophonists.
There's Coltrane and all these other famous jazz people,
but you know, Lisa Simpson for me was the one
that made me think, "Girls can do it, too," you know?
-That makes -- that's so cool.
I want to talk about your new movie "Misbehaviour."
This is based on a true story of what happened
at the Miss World competition in 1970.
A lot of people might not know the story.
I wasn't that familiar with the story.
Can you tell everyone what it's about?
-Yeah, I didn't know anything about it
until I read the script, and it's kind of
an amazing story because, you know, really, in 1970,
it was around the period that the women's liberation movement
were forming, and the ceremony itself
was the most watched TV show in the world.
This particular year in 1970,
the women's liberation movement stormed the ceremony
in the middle for the feminist cause and they threw
flower bombs on Bob Hope, completely disrupted
the whole ceremony, but it was also the year
that the first woman of color, Miss Grenada, who I play,
won the competition.
So it's kind of this amazing intersection of events
between sort of, you know, the birth of feminism
in the '70s on one hand,
and then this huge step forward in terms
of representation for women of color
and perceptions of beauty on the other.
So, yeah, it was an amazing year,
and, you know, it's obviously the '70s fashions and the music
and the era is just really, really fun
to look back on as well. -I want to show a clip.
Here is Gugu Mbatha-Raw in "Misbehaviour." Take a look.
-There will be little girls watching tonight
who will see themselves differently because I won,
who might just start to believe
that you don't have to be white to have a place in the world.
-I'm glad.
I -- I really hope that the world opens up
for them and for you,
but making us compete with each other over the way we look,
doesn't make the world narrower for all of us in the end?
-[ Sighs ]
What's your name?
-Sally.
-Well, Sally,
all I can say is
I look forward to having your choices in life.
-Gugu Mbatha-Raw, everybody.
"Misbehaviour" is available on all major digital
and cable platforms today.