Naomie Harris plays a crack addict and mother to the main character in the critically acclaimed film, “Moonlight,” but she almost turned down the part because she didn’t want to let down black women.
Interestingly enough, Barry Jenkins, the director of the film, was able to convince Naomie to give the role a chance.
Backstage writes:
It was a hard-won epiphany of character. When first approached with Jenkins’ screenplay, based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s autobiographical play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” Harris feared Paula may be too far gone to save on the screen. She was afraid of drawing her, a drug-addicted black woman living in Miami’s inner city, as a stereotype.
“I always said that I wanted to show positive images of women—black women in particular—and so I’d always drawn the line at playing a crack addict,” Harris explains. She changed her mind after several long Skype calls with Jenkins, who had a particularly personal investment in Paula’s arc.
“The character was based on my experience with my mom and Tarell’s experience with his mom,” Jenkins tells Backstage. “When I explained to Naomie what that was like and how it affected my life, she saw a way into the character that did not revolve around addiction but revolved around the relationship between this woman and her son, and the role that addiction plays in creating a wedge in that relationship.”
We need less slave, civil rights and drug dealer based movies. I think it’s telling that as long as Hollywood has been in business, there haven’t been any big time films made about African Kings and Queens Yet, movies like this get approved by major studies all the time. They only want to see us in certain ways.
I really want to see this.
It’s good to know she actually cares. Most don’t.
Lol…. almost doesn’t count.
I want to see this. I heard it was so good.