AND THE OSCAR FOR INSPIRATION GOES TO ...
Two grew up in council flats with single mums. Another comes from one of London’s most deprived streets. And one’s the child of African refugees. Now, through grit and talent, they’re setting Hollywood alight
Not So long ago, the identikit oscar nominee from these shores was cast from a very distinct mould. Well-spoken, posh and possessed of a peculiarly British charm, they were also white. today, that mould has been not so much broken as shattered into fragments, courtesy of a generation of extraordinary actors.
Last week Daniel Kaluuya, the 28-year-old son of Ugandan immigrants, won a Bafta as Rising Star — voted for by the public. But that might prove to be merely a curtain-raiser for something even more dramatic. Next weekend, he will take his place at the oscars in the running to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Equally fascinating is that this makes him the fourth black Londoner to be nominated for an acting oscar or Golden Globe in as many years. And of those, two were raised in a council flat by single mothers, a third grew up in one of the most deprived streets in the capital, while the fourth’s parents were refugees fleeing war in Africa.
the announcement of Daniel Kaluuya’s oscar accolade shows that the British acting firmament has changed fundamentally. Along with Naomie Harris, Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor, he is living proof that with hard work and determination anything is possible.
He may not be a household name — this will be the first time many people have heard of him — but that is all set to change with a series of high-profile movies.
Foremost among them is Get out, a Bafta-nominated horror film which became the surprise U.S. hit of last year. Made on a budget of just £3 million, it grossed £175 million at the box office, for which much of the credit goes to Daniel’s bravura lead performance.
HE
ALSo stars in new blockbuster superhero movie Black Panther, which has broken box office records in recent days.
Not bad for a young man whose father walked out when he was a baby. By Daniel’s own account the first two years of his life were spent in hostels with his mother, Damalie Namusoke. And while he has never seen his father, Stephen, now 59, Daniel took his surname.
touchingly, when Daniel won the Bafta last week, he said in a moving acceptance speech: ‘Mum, you’re the reason why I started, the reason why I’m here and the reason why I keep going. thank you for everything. this is yours.’
When he was two, Damalie managed to secure a flat on a Camden council estate. Rather than remain on benefits she found work at a special needs school, encouraging Daniel to focus on his studies at St Aloysius College, a Catholic school in North London.
A naturally gifted student, he was easily bored, and there were plenty of distractions. ‘It was a boisterous school — a lot of fighting energy,’ he said.
‘there was a time where we had all- year detention, where the school would lock up our whole year because there were fights and knife crime.’
the estate in Camden, where Daniel grew up, was built in the thirties and residents created a strong community in the immediate postwar period — there was even a song, sung with pride by its younger inhabitants. But it was a tough area, too.
Daniel describes a Camden far removed from its trendy, bohemian image. ‘the biggest drug market in Europe,’ he says. ‘It was where the Sex Pistols were born, as well as punk. Amy Winehouse lived there. It can be quite a dark place, because there are loads of drugs and all the drugs went into homes.’
Daniel grew up with a mix of challenging school career and loving home, in which intellectual pursuits were encouraged.
‘the narrative is always that you have to be in some gang s**t,’ he explained. ‘ I went to a rough school and I was a normal dude, cool with all the rough kids and the geeks.’
today, his mother still lives in the same flat on the estate. Neighbours are discreet about their local-boy-done-good.
‘I can’t talk about him — they asked us not to,’ says the man at the next-door flat.
‘I remember him,’ says a male black resident. ‘Yeh, done well. on for the Big one [at the oscars]. Best of luck.’
Like other estates in desirable parts of London — it is handy for Camden Market and the borough’s other delights — it has undergone partial gentrification, with flats commanding half a million pounds.
Daniel’s salvation came in the form of art. Damalie encouraged him to write and, partly to keep her happy, he wrote his first play at the age of nine. Daniel took it to the local Anna Scher theatre group, it won a competition and was performed at Hampstead theatre.
He signed up for acting classes where, for a £5 fee, he could lose himself in improvisation for three hours. He landed his first two acting jobs, in the tV play Shoot the Messenger with British actor David oyelowo and drama series the Whistleblowers, by himself. once Daniel secured an agent, the big break soon came. His writing came to the attention of tV station E4, which hired him as a scriptwriter and actor, playing a character known as Posh Kenneth in the series Skins.
DANIEL says of discovering acting: ‘I thought I found my tribe — people who were from the estates who loved being creative, but weren’t flowery or lovey. that really resonated with me.’
that he did so in such straitened circumstances makes it all the more impressive. While his father still lives in London, employed by the NHS, he has never made a contribution to the family he left.
At one point in his childhood, Daniel was so short of money he would snack on free sauce sachets from McDonald’s.
But if anybody expects him to lament his background, they will be disappointed. Proud of his achievements, he hit back strongly last year when the veteran Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson criticised the casting of an Englishman as an African-American character in Get out.
‘I was working class, I had to fight for this, and I had to out-work everyone in order to get anywhere and anything,’ Daniel said.
As for his status as part of an oppressed minority, Daniel is having none of it. ‘I’m not a minority,’ he says. ‘there are a billion white people in the world and a billion black people in the world. What part of me is a minority?’
the similarities between Daniel and his cohorts are striking. Naomie Harris, oscar nominated last year for her performance in Moonlight, is another alumnus of the Anna Scher theatre school.
Her breakthrough came in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and she has made the part of Miss Moneypenny in the Daniel Craig Bond films her own with a blend of