Thuso Mbedu: That’s hilarious! It was a night shoot, which means I was cold and miserable. I remember Adrienne [Warren], Masali [Baduza], and myself, we were singing this random song we’d come up with, and then John popped up. It was an embarrassing moment. I was like, “Oh, snap. It’s John! This is not how we do things on the set; we’re supposed to be professional.” [laughs] But he had this big smile on his face and he looked like he was excited to come to join us, so it was a good first impression. TM: Everything was surprising for me because it was my first time learning about the Agojie warriors. Everything was new to me. As John said, it was the training more than anything. I learned that the women had to go through obstacle courses where they were running through thorns, pelted with rocks, jumping across really high spaces, and at the same time were not allowed to show weakness. When we were shooting with [the director], Gina, part of our conversation was, “How do we show that our characters are in pain, but they’re not allowed to show that?” We had ADR sessions where Gina said, “Okay, we need you to scream a bit louder.” And I’m like, “But the note on set was the Agojie was not supposed to show pain.” Their entire world was a shock for me. I’d say my takeaway was their strength and their conviction of what it is that they were fighting for. [Editor’s note: ADR is an acronym for automated dialogue replacement, a process in filmmaking where actors rerecord dialogue in postproduction.] TM: There was a dramatic scene Viola and I filmed earlier on where [General Nanisca and Nawi] had just come out of the water. Nawi says, “If I hadn’t come back for you, you would’ve died.” Viola (as Nanisca) says, “Oh, so you’re playing the hero.” After we shot that, she stopped and said, “I don’t believe what I’m doing.” That was important because it showed that she was always aware of what she was doing at all times. I always have full confidence in my acting ability because of the preparation that I do beforehand. But without it, I’d argue that 75% of my performance is still good enough to pass onscreen. At that moment, Viola essentially said, “My 75% might be good enough to pass, but it’s not the final product. I will stop and make sure that I’m giving 100%.” Also, I requested a fix in the scene later that night where Nawi is practicing on the dummy because I was like, Hmm, it wouldn’t make sense that she would be rehearsing on a dummy with a machete that had been taken from her earlier." What’s funny is, most of us on that set are introverts, so we understood each other. We got each other without having to say much. We bonded during training for battle scenes because of our matching personalities, and just being with each other almost all the time. I think the connection happened organically. As an introvert myself, whenever I feel comfortable around people is when they get to know who I am. Viola is also an introvert, but sometimes randomly when they called cut, she’d start dancing, and then we’d join. We were an introverted group of people celebrating what it is that we were doing. [Editor’s note: Dana Stevens wrote the screenplay for The Woman King.] JB: I didn’t get anything, but I definitely wanted some stuff. Maybe I’ll ask for something now. [laughs] JB: My mom [is my woman king]. Lord, where do I even start? I mean, she’s everything. Her support, her knowledge, and the fact that we have a great friendship. TM: I know how proud my niece will be to see me onscreen. And I know that being in a movie like this means she can experience the world in a completely different way from how I had to experience the world growing up just because I was darker. I have a light-skin sister, so I’m speaking from experience. She was the favored one. She was the one that people gravitated toward. She was the one who was told she was beautiful and that she was likable. I hadn’t done or made anything to earn the title of being the opposite of who she is; I was just existing as a dark-skin girl. My niece is also dark-skinned, and she’s always been told that she looks like me. For her to see something like The Woman King will expand who she can become, and that makes me very excited.
