Stenberg ready to be a voice for her generation
Eighteen-year-old actress, activist and all-around talent Amandla Stenberg is OK with being considered a voice for her generation. “I kind of accept that responsibility,” she said. “I realise that I have this very unique privilege of gaining this attention from a lot of people, whether it’s through the internet or through movies, and so I feel like I have no other option than to try to utilise that well, otherwise I feel like it would all be pointless.”
Stenberg has gotten attention for her non-binary gender identity, interviewing Gloria Steinem and making a video for her high school’s senior class project that went viral, in which she calls out Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and other stars for appropriating black culture. It’s enough to make you forget she played Rue in 2012’s The Hunger Games.
Now Stenberg stars in the new young-adult romance, Everything, Everything. She also recorded a song for the film’s soundtrack, then starred in, directed and edited its music video .
Stenberg said she wanted to make the movie because it’s a whimsical love story with a black girl at its center, yet it has nothing to do with race.
“When I was a kid, I wish I could see myself in media in that way, and see myself in media that... wasn’t necessarily pointing out or creating a dialogue around my race,” she said. “I wish I could have just seen myself existing onscreen, so with this film I got to fulfill that desire in a really powerful and incredible way.”
Getting an opportunity to record one of her favourite songs (Mac DeMarco’s Let My
Baby Stay) and make her own music video was an unexpected bonus. “It’s probably the most authentically me thing you can watch, just because I got to control every aspect of it,” Stenberg said.
Now that she’s gotten a taste of recording and directing, she intends to do more of both, she said. And of course she’ll continue acting and writing and speaking out. That outspokenness is partially what drew Tony Award-winning actress Anika Noni Rose to Everything, Everything.
“I think she’s extraordinarily smart, forward-thinking and socially conscious,” Rose said of Stenberg.
I realise that I have this very unique privilege of gaining this attention from a lot of people.” Amandla Stenberg