Sweet as Thandie
Born in London on November 6, 1972, Thandiwe Newton
spent some of her formative years in Zambia with her Zimbabwean mother,
Nyasha, and her British father, Nick. However, political unrest would
prompt the family to relocate to England where Thandiwe would attend the
University of Cambridge.
Thandie Newton: The
Run, Fatboy, Run Interview
with Kam Williams
KW: Hi Thandie, I'm honored to have this opportunity to speak with
you.
TN: Really? That's so lovely.
KW: Absolutely!
TN: Nice. Is Kam short for something?
KW: Funny you should ask. Yes, Kamau, it's an African name.
TN: Cool!
KW: I was given the name when I was a jazz musician back in the
Seventies. We were getting ready to record an album and the leader of
the group didn't want any slave names on the record cover.
TN: Wow!
KW: Over the years, people sort of Anglicized it by dropping the ’au’
off.
TN: How amazing! ’Kam’ is gorgeous. I love it. My name, Thandie,
is an abbreviation, too, of Thandiwe.
KW: I knew that. And that it means ’beloved.’ Ironically,
Beloved might
have been your breakout role.
TN: Yes, I think it probably was.
KW: I also thought you were terrific in your next picture, Besieged.
TN: I loved that film.
KW: Why did you decide to make your second comedy in a row with Run,
Fatboy, Run?
TN: Well, I made
Norbit, but I
still felt that I hadn’t really been involved in a comedy in terms of
having the experience of just witnessing comedians at work.
Norbit just felt
a little claustrophobic. It didn't have the kind of freedom or
camaraderie that I thought a comedy should have. And I was keen to work
in England, as I always have been, because my children go to school
there. Plus, I've been a fan of Simon Pegg's for a number of years. I
love the work that he's done with Nick Frost, like Shaun of the Dead and
Hot Fuzz. And I just got a sense of [director] David Schwimmer as a
really well-rounded, decent guy from when he did a play with a friend of
mine, Saffron Burrows. I like working with first-time directors because
it's often a risk well worth taking. And I loved the material. So, it
was fun!
KW: One of the things I love about this film is that it's hard to
pigeonhole.
TN: I feel the same way. It's not a romantic comedy. It's not a
straight drama. It feels much more true to life than a formulaic comedy.
But I also think that Simon has great timing and a unique kind of humor,
reminiscent of Peter Sellers or Jack Lemmon. He reminds me of those old
school comedians whose brands of humor were much more authentically a
part of their personality, not anything generic. Simon's is a
combination of physical, creative and intelligent. His other gift is
that he can move from a strongly comedic moment to one of complete
earnestness which draws you in much more. Ordinarily, comedy is a
detachment from feeling where you turn something into a joke instead of
express how you really feel. That kind of protects you from being the
one with an opinion, if you know what I mean.
KW: Right.
TN: But Simon can get right into earnest emotion very easily, so
the comedy almost allows for the sentiments to go deeper. I think he's
unique in that respect. In England, it's been a while since we've found
someone who could cross over and be an international success in movies.
And I just think Simon's it.
KW: I think you're obviously ’it’ too. I felt that your performance
in Crash was
pivotal, and providing that Oscar-winning Best Picture with its most
riveting and social significant moment by far. That's why I said you
deserved an Oscar for it.
TN: Well, there were a large number of very strong performances
that year. I don't know, ever since Beloved was snubbed by the industry,
and not taken seriously in that respect, I don't feel impassioned with
either joy or sadness by getting or not getting accolades. It's not part
of the way that I value myself.
KW: I also think that many of the challenging, iconoclastic characters
that you've played, in films like Beloved and Besieged and Crash, aren’t
the types of roles ordinarily recognized by the Oscars.
TN: The thing about all of those roles, and
The Pursuit of Happyness, as well, is that they make people
uncomfortable, because it goes right to the marrow of the truth. That is
not a popular place to be. With Beloved, it wasn't popular to take the
lid off denial. But I like to put myself in that area of discomfort,
because that's what truly reveals the essence of what we really are,
those areas that you'd rather ignore and get away from. They’re the ones
that I just want to stare at as long as I can. So, I don't mind, even
though the Oscar has become the absolute benchmark for filmmaking
talent. I think we can sort of promote ourselves as individuals. If we
feel privileged to witness a great performance, then that in itself is
enough to feel validated.
KW: I agree. Plus, the job that you do as a mother is far more important
than acting.
TN: It is and it isn't though, Kam, because the truth is that if
you want to be a movie star, you've got to work at it. But I've found
that in order to ensure longevity, it's better to avoid the highs and
lows of success. It's sort of like surfing where if you stay in the
middle of a wave, you're going to stick around longer. But if you get
into the dizzying heights, you've got to maintain, and that's a tough
thing to do. I've got two kids, so I'm quite happy to stay on in the
middle, burning my light a bit brighter here and there. But I love what
I do.
KW: The Tao teaches that both the very heights and the very bottom are
to be avoided.
TN: I think that's true, but I'll get the old Oscar for all of us
one day.
KW: I'm sure. Given that you have a parent from Africa, and one who's
white, I'd love to hear what you think of
Barack Obama’s candidacy.
TN: I think that it's wonderful for America to have these rich
choices in whom they vote for. It feels like there's evolution happening
right in front of us. And I don't think it's just about America but an
international vote for life to have these exciting choices available.
Once a pick has been made, what's important is to commit to the changes
that these people actually want to put in place. I think that how
Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or anyone else is going to benefit the
country is far more complex than the color of their skin or their
gender. So, in a way, it's been a distraction from what's truly
necessary which is to get in there and make real changes.
KW: I've read that you were born in England, and also that you were born
in Africa. Which is correct?
TN: I was born in London during a brief trip back from Africa
which is where we all lived at the time.
KW: How do you think growing up in Africa and England, and having both a
black and a white parent has shaped you?
TN: Oh, God, that would be an hour-long answer to your question.
It provided challenges which have made me who I am’It provided great
wealth in terms of having this great-colored skin, and looking exotic,
and different. However, it also made for a very lonely disposition as a
child, at times. Being an outsider has its good and its bad. There's a
ying and yang to all of it. Having to negotiate that kind of winding
road has made me much more inquisitive about psychology, and interested
in investigating myself and the parameters that people set up around
themselves and others. It's a privilege, in a way, to have had to
question my identity. By virtue of being unconventional, I was exploring
that from a very young age. And I feel glad about that. But by the same
token, if I hadn’t had the strength of character and some real pluses,
like getting involved in the arts, for example, where differences can be
celebrated, I could have been a very depressed, a very closeted, and a
very unhappy person. But I see these challenges and negative experiences
as gifts, at least I do now, anyway. [Laughs] So, I've been showered
with gifts, and I'm glad of that. Life is about being uncomfortable and
about how we deal with those areas of discomfort. I'm sorry I'm not
answering your question, but it's such a gigantic question, and one that
I can't answer briefly.
KW: No, this was an excellent answer, given our time constraints.
Another thing I really liked about Run, Fatboy, Run was its colorblind
casting.
TN: I love that not one journalist has questioned my son in the
movie looking so light. In real life, I have one blonde child, and one
dark-haired child. One of my daughters is olive-skinned, like me, and my
other is very pale-skinned. Their faces are similar, but they have
different coloring. 30 or 40 years ago, it would have been noted, and
someone would've complained, saying, ’She couldn't have a kid that
color.’ So, I do love that the casting hasn’t been questioned in England
[where it opened last September] and I'm interested in seeing how it is
accepted in the United States. I wonder whether black audiences will
want to see the movie.
KW: I certainly hope so, not only because it's very funny, but to
support colorblind casting and the idea that you can have you and Simon
Pegg paired in a romantic comedy without skin color having to be the
theme. So, I'm asking all my readers to support it.
TN: You do it, Kam!
by Justine Picardie Hardcover: 416
pages A haunting novel that illuminates the true story of Daphne du Maurier's fascination with the Bront’s: a tale of madness, theft, romance, and literary archaeology. |
KW: Bookworm
Troy
Johnson was wondering what's the last book you read?
TN: Oh my Lord! What was the last book I read? Oh, it was a book
by my friend, Justine Picardie, called Daphne. It's about Daphne du Maurier and the Bronte family.
KW: Lastly. are you ever afraid?
TN: No.
KW: Well, thanks again for the interview, Thandie, and best of luck in
the future.
TN: Thanks you so much. Take care, bye!
Related Links
Run, Fatboy, Run
Film Review
http://reviews.aalbc.com/run_fatboy_run.htm
Thandie Newton - Crash Interview
http://reviews.aalbc.com/thandie_newton.htm
Thandie Newton - The ’For Colored Girls’ Interview http://aalbc.com/reviews/thandie_newton2.html