When Lashana Lynch heard that filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood wanted to talk to her about a project, she was ready to say yes, whatever it was.
She’s been in love with Prince-Bythewood’s work since “Love & Basketball,” her feature directorial debut, Lynch, 35, said in a video interview from London last month. “I would work with her every day.”
The project, it turned out, was “The Woman King,” a historical drama set in 1823 about an army of women soldiers in West Africa. Prince-Bythewood had the role of Izogie – a battalion leader’s devoted warrior, played by Viola Davis, and a mentor to a future fighter (Thuso Mbedu) – written with Lynch in mind.
“Coming from a black female director, that made me so emotional because I thought, ‘Wow, she really thought of me as a human being,'” says Lynch, an actress known for her performances in the James Bond movie “No Tie to Die’ and more recently as Captain Marvel in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.’ “She’s been thinking about who I am, what I’ve done, but also things I haven’t shown the world yet.” “
As shooting for “The Woman King” progressed, the role grew as Lynch shared ideas about Izogie’s backstory with Prince-Bythewood, who incorporated some into the script.
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“We just knew her,” Lynch said. “She was born alone, which is actually quite Izogie of her. She showed us who she was, and we listened.”
Lynch answered three questions about Izogie’s driving forces. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
How do you think Izogie’s character challenges gender norms?
As soon as I got the part, I was like, “Okay, here we go.” A woman in an all-female army, very, very physically strong, mentally strong – we now enter what, in the wrong hands, would be the strong black woman trope I’m always on the hunt to dismantle. And this is a really great way to do that gently.
Izogie is tasked with showing young women how their vulnerability and what they come up with organically can be their superpower. For me as an actor characterizing Izogie, I thought, “I want her masculine and feminine energy to be as strong and as powerful as seen.” I think we did that between me and Gina. We just let her be, and not think about who Izogie would be compared to, or if she would be considered the really strong, physically built, manly woman in the military.
She would just be a woman in all her glory, which she deserves to be. I just wanted her to live.
What do you see as the source of her strength?
We as humans have such an interesting way of dealing with trauma with humor. It’s very interesting to talk about when you meet someone, and they’ve been through something, and when they talk about it, they smile or they laugh or they brush it off and move on.
I think it’s such an incredibly beautiful, protective way of being that Izogie, doing that in the powerful position she’s in, really reminds us as audience members, “Oh yeah, I’m human. I just go around the world the way I know how to protect myself. She teaches us to be OK, not to be OK.
For most of the movie, you think she has such control, which she is in a way. But there really is such a vulnerability there, and fear and anxiety and essentially trauma that she works through. She has an organic way of authentically existing, which can be scary to do, but she doesn’t do it in a way that seems out of reach for us mere mortals who look at the screen and think, “I want to aspire to do that. “
She’s not a superhero either. She is a woman who goes about her daily life, doing her best in the most creative way she can. I like superheroes and they serve their purpose. But nothing beats a real human having natural super powers just by being born and using them in a great way.
Why should people watch “The Woman King”?
I would say that “The Woman King” is a movie that people from all walks of life have been waiting for, but just hadn’t anticipated the package it would come in.
Now we have the package. We can appreciate physical action. We can appreciate actors going 100 with the stunts themselves. We can appreciate black women who exist as the humanized versions of themselves instead of this very strong, very elevated, non-human version that is unreal.
We can also re-teach the world why black history is so important to all sectors of the planet without hitting anyone on the head with it. We only present information in the most powerful, beautiful, delicate, sometimes understated story that makes you feel good, but also makes you wonder what you do for the world and how you want to exist here.
What footprint do you want to leave on the planet? What is your target? I hope some people have at least begun the journey of finding that by watching this movie.