GUGU MBATHA-RAW is the star of the April 2018 issue of British Vogue. Photographed by Mikael Jansson and styled by Kate Phelan, editor-in-chief of fashion, styled by Eugene Souleiman and made up by Hannah Murray, Mbatha-Raw's portrait of Valentino marks the debut of Vogue. The daughter of an English mother and a South African father, Gugu, who is an abbreviation of Gugulethu, a contraction of igugu lethu, which means "our pride" in Zulu, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from London. From her first roles on stage - she was Juliet to Romeo by Andrew Garfield in an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theater in 2005 - to appearances on television in Dr Who and Black Mirror, and her screen moment In A Wrinkle Over time, she flees archetypes and silently shapes a diverse resume for years. Her last role as Dr. Kate Murry in Ava DuVernay's Disney blockbuster marks the first time a black woman has made a $ 100 million film, and seems to be a good summary of Mbatha-Raw's career.
“The chance to work with Ava again, and what it means for a woman of colour to be directing something of that scale and budget for Disney – I wanted to be in that line,” Mbatha-Raw told Bim Adewunmi of being cast in the science fantasy adventure film.
Of bonding with Oprah, who plays Mrs Which, she recalled, “We were both on the set on the same day and she came and hung out in my trailer for a little bit and we had a chat, in her full character regalia, which is just goddess-like. I hope we actually get to do something where we work together in a scene because that’d be incredible. I feel so thankful to have her in my life and to have had her guidance. She’s a very special human.”
Looking back at her career trajectory, she touched on her dynamic role choices and personal mission not to be type cast. “I didn’t really see how I could be in a period drama without playing a slave, necessarily, or a character in a very subservient or brutalised role,” she noted of landing the lead role as Dido Elizabeth Belle in 2013’s Belle. “As a biracial woman born in the 1980s, if you let popular culture dictate it, you’d think mixed-race people were like a new thing. And that’s absolutely not the case. People of colour have existed throughout history – it’s just who has been able to tell the stories. And that to me became really important: to illuminate that. To show that Dido Elizabeth Belle is as valid a story as Elizabeth Bennet… And, you know, Elizabeth Bennet’s fictional.”
Read the full interview with Mbatha-Raw in the April issue, which is out on newsstands on March 9.Räägi sõbrale... #AFRICA ... spill TEA ABOUT THE TOPIC ABOVE.... Easy on Shade #jaiyeorie
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