Gugu Mbatha-Raw may have already notched up considerable credits in the likes of Black Mirror and Disney’s remake of Beauty & The Beast but at 36 years old, her time has fully arrived.
Alongside her heartbreaking star turn in Apple TV’s The Morning Show – playing the victim of a me-too incident with devastating affect the British actress with an MBE to show for her remarkable talents now takes on the likes of Edward Norton and Bruce Willis in Motherless Brooklyn. Set to the backdrop of 1950s New York, Gugu plays an activist before her time, Laura Rose who whilst tirelessly campaigning for racial social justice – a story which still rings true today – who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation.
As Gugu prepares to take on the role of Miss World – alongside Keira Knightley – in Misbehavior, a movie about a group of activists who hatch a plan to disrupt the 1970 Miss World beauty competition in London, the actress talks activism, power poses and racial discrimination…
Motherless Brooklyn has such a refreshing take on mental health and it deals very honestly with the realities of having Tourette’s. Is that something that spoke to you?
It’s really interesting. It’s set in the fifties and I think Edward (Norton) did that deliberately because it was a much less PC time. People call his character a freak show and people didn’t really understand his condition. But I think what I love about the film is that it also makes – without it sounding kind of cheesy – his condition almost his superpower because people overlook him. I think similarly for Laura, my character, she’s overlooked in terms of being racially discriminated against on a daily basis. They’re both underestimated, she’s a trained lawyer, he has Tourette’s syndrome, she doesn’t just sit back like a classic femme fatale and being sort of negative influence on the man, she’s challenges him to overcome his daily battles. Showing him having a condition isn’t an excuse for not being active in the culture.
By stepping into this era and investigating it, what do you think has been the biggest change socially and what are the things you realized haven’t changed at all?
I mean for me, obviously I can travel on the subway and get a seat and nobody’s overtly discriminating against me in that way, unlike Laura. But I think the themes of gentrification, the themes of abuse of power and these moguls that we see in our culture today are still unfortunately present. I certainly learnt in the research for the film even racism is engrained into the architecture of New York.
How much of an activist do you feel in your own life?
I think it’s in the choices I make. I’m an actor first and I am very much inspired by movements like Time’s Up and what’s going on in our culture. I contribute where I can, but I also feel like my main method of communication is my acting – that’s my gift. For me it’s about being able to choose roles and projects that create conversations like The Morning Show which is about the Time’s Up movement and women and power in the workplace. Unlike Laura, my character in Motherless Brooklyn, who’s out there protesting and knocking on doors, I find my activism through the themes of my work.
For you sitting here today, what do you think is the most pressing issue for you as a person?
Oh gosh. I mean, isn’t there so much? I’m a supporter for the UNHCR, which is the UN refugee agency, so displacement is something very close to my heart. I think that is colliding with other issues like climate change because now we are having climate refugees for the first time. It’s not just people who are displaced because of conflict, they’re displaced because of a hurricane. I think that the sense of home and the sense of how we treat our fellow humans, whether they’re our neighbors or not is very, very pressing issue for all of us.
Motherless Brooklyn deals with the idea of toxic masculinity – how have you dealt with that in your own career?
I haven’t had to deal with it personally. I’ve done many projects directed by women with a female gaze and I think often female directors have given me some of my meatier roles, leading roles. It’s been interesting doing a project like Motherless Brooklyn where I’m one of the few females in the film, but it was also set in the 50s which was a different era and women’s place in society was very different then.
There is a lot of visible vulnerability in Motherless Brooklyn, how have you used your own vulnerability to empower you?
Ooh, that’s a big question. Edward’s and I’s characters are bonded by loss and that is very relatable. We all go on a journey in our work and often you are sort of separate from the real world and these imaginary worlds become a place of refuge and a source of inspiration as well.
What have you learnt about yourself through your career?
Well, I feel like I learn more about myself and the world in every job that I do. I think I have found out what I am made of by putting myself in new contexts all the time. I’ve learned that I’m resilient, resourceful and quite adaptable. In this job you’re constantly having these very intense experiences that then disperse and then you’re onto the next thing. I think learning to bounce back from disappointments, learning to keep curious and not to get jaded about things is important. You have to be just relentlessly optimistic and that’s a way to learn and stay open to the world. In this job for instance, it can be intimidating when you’re suddenly in scenes with actors that you’ve watched in many films, so I’ve evolved to inhabit that space comfortably.
Where do you get your source of empowerment from?
I think it’s only got to come from within. I think there’s many accoutrements to acting empowered, but actually, really, I suppose it comes from being grounded, knowing yourself and making authentic choices for yourself. I think we will have moments of feeling powerless. I think that’s what it is to be human. The more I start telling the truth, stop being people pleaser and just become a truth teller is really empowering for me. Not caring what people think was something good to let go of. In the last couple of years, I care less and less. I’ve never really read reviews – I’m too sensitive for all of that stuff. We were having a conversation about social media earlier and I’m relatively newly on social media in the last year or two. But that was something that was inspired by movements like Time’s Up, where I was questioning, ‘am I really using my voice in an authentic way? Am I using all the tools at my disposal to be myself?’ I think probably for a long time I cared too much about what people might think to delve into that world. Now I think, ‘It doesn’t really matter. It’s just another mode of expression.’
Would you say sitting here today you are more empowered than ever before?
I do power poses all the time. Ever since I saw a Ted talk about it a few years ago. Any excuse I get, I stand with my arms up in the air, like on a cliff or something. But I might feel really powerful in this moment and then tonight I might not. I think it takes practice to build self-confidence. I think in our culture as well, power has just been so abused and constantly. The word power has these connotations of abuse that comes from the patriarchy and the masculine use of it. We are now rebranding power as something that’s different for everybody and that there’s different ways of expressing it and there’s not just one sweeping version of power that is a bullying use of it. There’s also a quiet strength and there’s an internal centeredness, which I think is much more authentic.
Motherless Brooklyn is in cinemas now
