Getting to know Thandie Newton .
The British actress talks about her family roots and new crime drama
AFRICAN HERITAGE Her Zimbabwean mother, Nyasha, is the daughter of a Shona chief, and Thandie (44) says she’s has always had “that incredible African dignity and poise”. Nyasha met Thandie’s father, Nick, a lab technician, while working as a nurse in Zambia.
Thandie was born in England but spent her first three years in Zambia before the family settled in Cornwall in the UK where she and younger brother Jamie were the only mixed-race kids in town. “There were the usual cruel names. And none of the boys wanted to go out with me. I don’t remember any overt racism but I now know my parents kept us safe from a lot of stuff.” BEAUTIFUL MISFIT “From about the age of five I was aware that I didn’t fit,” Thandie says. “I was the black, atheist kid in the all-white, Catholic school run by nuns. I was an anomaly.”
A talent for dance and a scholarship to a performance school provided an escape, but after an injury ended her dancing career she turned to theatre.
She bagged her first film role at the age of 16 when she was cast alongside a 21-year-old Nicole Kidman in the Australian movie Flirting. OUTSPOKEN Thandie recently revealed she was sexually harassed during her early years as an aspiring actress in Hollywood and says becoming a mother is partly what made her take a stand. In one incident a director pointed a camera up her skirt during an audition and in another she was groped by a co-star.
“It was part of the grooming – to be made to feel this is all part of what it means to be in show business, the kind of thing you have to tolerate in this industry.” NERVES OF STEEL Having had more work in the US than in the UK, Thandie was thrilled to get the part of police detective Roz Huntley in season four of British crime drama Line Of Duty. Huntley is back on the force after taking time off to raise her kids and is under pressure to solve a case and prove herself to her seniors. Roz makes an arrest but ends up being investigated by the anti-corruption unit.
Thandie says her Roz’s calmness under fire was partly what drew her to the role. “She’s had to fight to get where she is, and she copes well with this trial by fire. I love the fact we’re seeing a woman in that position with a hide that strong.” MOMMA BEAR Thandie and her husband of 19 years, filmmaker Ol Parker, have three children – daughters Ripley (16) and Nico (13), and son Booker (3). The Mission: Impossible star says her most important job is to make them feel empowered. “I think as a mom it’s important to teach your children that they’re extraordinary, powerful beings.”