- 12 hours ago
Antebellum stars Janelle Monáe and Gabourey Sidibe discuss with ESSENCE's senior entertainment editor how the film centers Black women.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00These sapphires are here to fulfill your every need.
00:10Wherever you were before, that's over.
00:19So I just want to say before we begin, I was thinking of one word that really encapsulated
00:27this film, and I would say it's effective.
00:31It's one of the most memorable films I've seen this year.
00:34I left the theater, I told Bush and Renz this, I left the theater looking behind my back,
00:39like, what's going on?
00:42I'm curious, what was it about, Janelle, what was it about this script that really drew you
00:47to this project?
00:48This script went through the past, the present, and a look into what the future can be.
00:58I felt like this was also an opportunity to humanize a Black woman, and I think we need
01:06more of that.
01:08We have the pressures of being the superheroes, saving the day, and also it didn't hurt that
01:14this is not a white savior film.
01:16I love that.
01:17But because we are put here, like, so much responsibility, we carry the burden of dismantling
01:26white supremacy and systemic racism every single day, and this movie is a look into that, and
01:32it humanizes this Black author who is a pillar in her community.
01:37She is a mother.
01:38She is a friend.
01:40She is a wife.
01:41She is a daughter.
01:43And not only does this character represent the ancestors, but this character represents
01:51women today that I admire, from Maxine Waters to Brittany Packnett to Jovian Zane to Angela
01:58Rye, you know, to Angela Davis, and so on and so on.
02:03And so having the opportunity to honor Black women to speak out against the silencing and
02:11the violence against Black women and Black bodies was also important to me.
02:16Yeah, and I smiled so hard when you said Jovian, because that's my friend in Soror, so shout
02:21out to Jovian.
02:22I'm just going to take a point of personal privilege.
02:25But this film was triggering in so many ways, and I believe that when people are at their
02:31homes, cozying up, watching this, something about it will trigger them, because as Janelle
02:37said, it looks to the ancestors, but it also looks to the future.
02:40Gabby, I'm curious, for you, when I watched this film, it brought up a lot of, like, ancestral
02:46trauma that I didn't even know was there.
02:50When you were reading this script, what did it bring up for you?
02:55Well, I, so I'm actually half Senegalese.
03:00My father is Senegalese.
03:01My mother is African-American from Georgia, and what it brought up for me is how stolen
03:11we are as people.
03:14African-Americans are simply African-Americans because we were stolen.
03:18We were taken from our home, from our society, from our world, from our entire universe.
03:25And for an African-American growing up in America and learning about your history, your history
03:31is slavery.
03:32That's it.
03:33Like, that's the beginning.
03:34You were a slave.
03:35But that's not true, and it's not fair.
03:38Before we were slaves, we were family.
03:41We were mothers.
03:42We were doctors.
03:43We were teachers.
03:44We were an entire society, and it's not fair to say your history is slavery.
03:51And on top of that, it's being taken away.
03:53It's being, like, it's now in history books, it says that Africans migrated to America to
03:59help build it, which we know is a lie, and it's a racer.
04:03And I, reading this script, I thought it was the most truthful look into slavery and look
04:12into our history and look into the answers and look into the here, the now, and the then
04:18that I'd read in such a long time.
04:22And I'd gone to Ghana right before reading it, and I remember being in Ghana, and I was
04:28at a slave castle, and the one thing I took away, the tour guide said, you know, these walls
04:34still stand because they were supposed to, because they're supposed to, and everything
04:38works today.
04:40Though we've not been slaves for hundreds of years, that's not what they intended.
04:44They intended for us to be slaves and under their thumb forever.
04:49And I'm sure we could all see the country backsliding in such a gigantic, huge way.
04:55And if we slide too goddamn far, we'll be right back where Eden was.
05:01Yeah.
05:01Wow.
05:01That was powerful.
05:02This is not just another slave movie.
05:06I want to make that very clear for the people who are watching.
05:10But it does grapple with the atrocities that our ancestors had to face.
05:16Being women, especially Black women, enslaved in America, there was a sort of intimacy with
05:23your oppressor that makes the experience different.
05:27And I don't want to spoil the movie.
05:29I promise, no spoilers.
05:31But Janelle, I wonder, how do you approach a role, because you, well, I'm not going to
05:37say nothing, but how do you approach portraying that as a free Black woman, but having to go
05:46there to emote that and experience that?
05:49The word you mentioned was free.
05:51And that is at the center.
05:54Freedom.
05:54How did I get free?
05:55I know that I am free because of my ancestors' fight for me to be free.
06:03We are up against racist policies that keep us in shackles.
06:10So knowing that gave me a deep sense of responsibility to honesty, to truth.
06:18I needed to go there.
06:19This is a film.
06:21My ancestors lived this and worked.
06:23That's real.
06:26That's real talk.
06:27Yeah.
06:28And I know this is.
06:29Listen, and a lot of praying and meditating.
06:33Because, listen, like Gabby said, we're sliding.
06:39We're backsliding.
06:41And you've got to fight through that anger.
06:43We're tired.
06:47We're fatigued.
06:51And in those moments, I really look to the women who are getting death threats every
06:58single day because they're using their voice.
07:01And if they can endure that and still fight for us to change these racist policies, then
07:07I can show up on set and give it my all.
07:10I love that.
07:13And so much of the film is heavy.
07:18And this conversation, too, because it's about the film.
07:20But Gabby, you brought such a light to this film.
07:25So it was one of my favorite performances of yours.
07:28I just thank you for your laughter that you brought to the scenes.
07:34Stellar.
07:35Really, really stellar.
07:36And it really speaks to the sisterhood that Black women need to have.
07:41Like, you know, you play Janelle's on-screen best friend.
07:45And you hold her accountable.
07:47You push her.
07:48You remind her of her greatness.
07:50And I feel like you portrayed it so accurately, like who we are to our friends and to our family.
07:55I just loved it so much.
07:58I wonder, though, how has that experience been in Hollywood?
08:03I mean, you portrayed it so accurately on-screen.
08:08But off-screen in the Hollywood space, we see Black women befriend each other, hold each other up, you know, write fire comments on Instagram photos.
08:16How has that experience been in the Black Hollywood space?
08:19I've not been in Hollywood the entirety of my life, but I know I can, if I ever feel alone, if I ever feel, if I'm on the bus on my way to school and there's some madman, like, you know, like, you know, somebody going through it.
08:37Or maybe that's someone that feels a little dangerous.
08:40I know that I can look around the bus and connect guys with a Black woman.
08:44And, like, we do not know each other, but we know each other.
08:47And that exists between every single one of us.
08:51There is, it is absolutely a sisterhood.
08:53It is a sisterhood.
08:55And I know, I, it's, it's a sisterhood.
08:59And, and I'm so grateful to be in rooms in Hollywood where it's actually super scary.
09:06I know about Janelle, I know about other people.
09:08I'd be terrified.
09:10But, but when I first sort of became an actress and when I first sort of became, like, a public person,
09:17Alfre Woodard throws the sister soiree that Janelle was inducted into a few years ago.
09:23So my first year, it was literally, it was me and, like, Alfre Woodard and, like, it's, it's Aisha Tyler and Tracee Ellis Ross and Regina King.
09:33And it's, like, you know, and it's all of these people who are my sisters who are, who also, but also had a hand in raising me.
09:40Because I saw them on TV every day.
09:42And it's such a scary, Hollywood is such a scary space to be in.
09:46So to be in a room where everybody will hold your hand and say, sis, we got you and we see you.
09:51And, like, Janelle, you know what that's like, too.
09:52It's, isn't it so beautiful to be in that room?
09:55It feels like you're, it feels like a safety blanket.
09:58Yeah, it's nothing like it.
10:00And I think that that's what we wanted to do on screen.
10:02We wanted to portray those relationships that Alfre had, had, had given us.
10:07And, you know, our cousins and, like, aunties and just, there, there's just this internal protection that we have for each other.
10:16And, and, and when it comes to, like, constructive criticism, you know that it's coming from a place of love.
10:22You know what I'm saying?
10:24I think that what Gabby brought in, and I told, as soon as I read the script, she was the only person for that part, for me.
10:30Yeah.
10:30There was no other person.
10:32Like, I told the directors, I told casting, I told my team.
10:36I was like, Gabby, I called Gabby, too.
10:38And I basically, please.
10:40And when she, she had already read the script, and, you know, she shared her story when she, you know, went to a castle in Ghana.
10:50And that story was just, it just took me over.
10:54And so I think when she came to the film, and when she and I filmed, when we filmed our scenes together, we wanted, we wanted to show the joy and the peace.
11:03That we got that.
11:06But like I said, we're from a society.
11:09Like, you're stolen from a society.
11:11And so it felt like Dawn's purpose was to show the society that Veronica is from, and the society that misses her.
11:19The society that is now empty without her spot.
11:22Yeah.
11:22Does that make sense?
11:23Yeah.
11:25And to close this conversation, so many people, because of COVID, which has robbed us of a lot of things, they won't be able to see it in a community space, which I think you almost need, because it is so heavy.
11:39But hopefully people will be in the comfort of their homes, with their families, friends, safely, watching this.
11:47How would you prepare?
11:49What would be your advice to prepare people to sit down and watch?
11:51Because it is heavy stuff we're dealing with.
11:53Would there be any advice you would give someone?
11:56I mean, I do want people to watch it together.
11:58I think that this was meant for the theater.
12:01I think that it's a big screen event.
12:04Make it an event.
12:07You know, get your drinks, get your popcorn, invite people over, even if you're in your masks.
12:12If you've got to go get a test, get your tests.
12:15But turn off your phone.
12:17Turn off your phone.
12:18And, you know, don't look at any spoilers, because that's the thing about TV.
12:23Like, people watch it at different times, and they go, and they're like, okay, this is what it is.
12:27Because there are twists and turns in this.
12:31There are a lot of, because when I read the script, that's what made me say, yes, I said, I was not expecting that.
12:37Wow.
12:38You know, and to see it on screen is just a different thing.
12:41So I would say watch it with each other, discuss afterwards.
12:45It's meant to continue a conversation, a much-needed conversation.
12:49I hope that Black women feel proud.
12:52I hope that Black women feel seen, loved, heard.
12:55And I hope that those who are in the position of power, if you're watching this, that you will do the work.
13:02You do the work to dismantle white supremacy and systemic racism and anything that does not give Black women peace and joy and freedom.
13:14Thank you both.
13:15Well, I just want to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, from this Black woman, because you both made me so proud.
13:22So thank you.
13:23Thank you for your work.
13:24Thank you, Joy, Maureen.
13:26I'm really, you take care.
13:28God bless.
13:28God bless.
13:32God bless.
Comments