00:00I'm really happy. You know, the most important thing for me was when we took it to South
00:12Africa and we showed it to Winnie, and she loved it. And she said, you know, it's the
00:17first time that she's been faithfully portrayed on screen. And that, for me, was everything.
00:22You know, it's such a huge honour to have the person that you're playing say, yes, you've
00:26done a great job and you've managed to capture me. That was huge. It's not my job to kind
00:30of be a spokesperson for Winnie or justify her actions at all, but it is my job to capture
00:35her essence and to play her truthfully. And if that involves going into controversial
00:40areas, I don't mind that as an actor, you know, that I'm not about just playing saints,
00:46you know. It's, I want to play all kinds of people. That's what interests me and that's
00:50what keeps me excited about being in this industry and doing my job. There's a huge
00:54challenge of playing her from 21 to 57, which in itself is very challenging. But then, along
01:02the way, she goes through these massive shifts in who she is, you know, radical transformations.
01:07Like, you know, the 18 months in solitary confinement that she goes through, she's a
01:11completely different person to the woman that she enters and the person that comes out are
01:14completely different. To show those shifts in who she is without it seeming like I'm
01:19playing seven different characters, but keeping a consistency in who this character is was
01:25really difficult. Then there's also the accent on top of that. The fact that, you know, you
01:30have the weight of playing, for many people, many people, you know, demonise Winnie, but
01:34for others, she is Mother Africa. So you have the weight of expectations as well when you're
01:39playing, you know, an iconic South African figure like this as well. So there were lots
01:43of different challenges. I spoke to Winnie before we started filming. I had the honour
01:47of sitting down and having dinner with her and being able to ask her about her life.
01:52And, you know, the most important question for me was, how do you want to be portrayed?
01:58You know, because there are so many different ideas about who you are. So which one is true?
02:03Because I was really struggling with all the different views of who she is. And I was hoping
02:06that she'd say, well, I'm this, you know, and then I'd say, OK, well, all right, then
02:11that's how you want to be portrayed. But actually, she was really gracious. She gave me a much
02:15better answer than I could have hoped for. And she just said, the most important thing
02:19for me is that you play me truthfully. So do your research and just tell the truth.
02:25And so it was something like really liberating because all these different ideas from people
02:30about how I should play her, I was able to let them go. And I just took ownership of
02:34all the material, all the research that I've done, and thought, I'll come up with the Winnie
02:38as I see fit. Hi, I'm Naomi Harris, and you're watching DnTV.
Comments