JANELLE MONÁE
AS JANELLE MONÁE TAKES ON HER FIRST LEAD ROLE IN MYSTERY-HORROR ANTEBELLUM, THE PIONEERING POLYMATH IS CONTINUING A MISSION: TO STAND UP, STAND OUT, AND PUSH THINGS FORWARD
Not content with dominating the music scene for the last few years, Ms Monae has been low-key conquering movies and television too. Now, with Antebellum, she takes her first lead film role, and Hollywood, by the scruff of the neck.
IN EVERYTHING SHE DOES, JANELLE MONÁE IS BOLD
JUST WATCH HER her show-stopping 2020 Oscars performance, which saw her rolling around in the aisles of the Dolby Theatre. There, she beguiled Tom Hanks with a rendition of Mister Rogers’ theme, ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’. She rewrote her 2010 song ‘Come Alive’ to reference #Oscarssowhite and the ceremony’s biggest snubs (Hustlers, Queen & Slim, Dolemite Is My Name, female directors at large). She thrust a microphone at Leonardo Dicaprio, which he just about managed to “la-la-la” into.
That fearlessness runs through all of Monáe’s work. After a near-decade of releasing genre-melding, sci-fi-inspired R&B records — indebted to everything from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner — she kicked off her screen career in 2016 with the double whammy of Moonlight and Hidden Figures. From there, she has continued to be an active part of telling stories of the Black experience and Black history, in biopic Harriet,
about 19-century abolitionist and former slave Harriet Tubman, and now as the lead in Antebellum — a socially conscious frightfest firmly in the post-get Out Black horror boom. Monáe plays Veronica Henley, a successful modern woman who becomes trapped in a new reality steeped in the horrors of plantation-era America.
With that film hot on the heels of her incredible performance in Amazon’s Homecoming,
Monáe is having a hell of a year. As a rising screen star, a burgeoning producer with her own Wondaland Pictures banner, and an artist who moves fluidly between mediums, she is redefining what it means to be a queer, Black woman in the creative industries. She’s forging a brave new world — and waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
What about Antebellum made you want to take on your first lead film role?
I read the script in one sitting. I was in the bathtub, and I couldn’t put it down, I couldn’t stop. By the second act, I didn’t know how it was going to end. Gerard [Bush, co-writer and co-director] had a very vivid dream about some ancestor talking to him, representing Veronica’s character in his dream, and I also have art that’s been inspired by dreams I’ve had — I’ve written songs based off melodies in them — so I understood where he was coming from. Once we started talking through what it would mean to put out a movie like Antebellum, I had reservations but also new responsibilities, thinking about where we are in today’s society. Our past informs our present, and our present will inform our future. It’s all interconnected. I felt like this story would start important conversations that we need to have as Earthlings, as human beings. I could give a voice to so many of the Veronica Henleys around the world.
What can you tell us about Veronica? In the modern day she’s a successful author, but in another reality she’s somehow been enslaved.
Veronica is very intelligent. She’s familyoriented. She loves her community. She’s a beacon of hope, a voice to so many Black women. She’s encouraging Black women to walk in their authenticity, and not to assimilate but liberate themselves. Her words and what she represents is a threat to the patriarchy and those who want to silence her.
It feels like so many of those things also describe you.
Well, there are certain choices that I would not make that Veronica would. Veronica has a lot more patience than I do, honestly [laughs]. I take on characters that make me want to be better as a person. As an artist, I can be a lot more emotional in my responses, and Veronica is more measured. When I’m creating, I’m not thinking about being measured. I’m just trying to be as unfiltered and honest and raw and real as possible. Plus, Veronica goes through a lot more trauma in this film than I have experienced. Without giving away too much, I knew that it was going to take me into a different headspace. I did a lot of meditation, a lot of exercising.
I had a lot more sleepless nights, thinking about what it was going to be like, filming some of the horrific things at five in the morning.
Are you a horror fan? You wore the Midsommar dress at the Oscars.
Oh, I’m a horror fan. I grew up with my cousins and family watching Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Michael Myers, Chucky and Candyman. I’m the person that would get excited when I saw Robert Englund in one of the
Nightmare On Elm Streets as himself, because I knew what he looked like. I’ve always wanted to get more into the horror space. I think Jordan Peele has reinvigorated a lot of our beliefs that we can do this — it has given us a voice and opened up so many doors for Black voices in horror. We really have to pay him a lot of respect.
For five minutes at the Oscars you had total control. How did you decide what to do with that performance?
It was great to be in that space and be authentically me. I think you saw the authentic Janelle Monáe, you know? It was very in line with stuff I’ve said in the past, and where I am presently. I’m excited about the future of cinema. One of the things my company, Wondaland Pictures, is trying to do is partner with more women, people of colour, and Black people in LGBTQIA+ spaces that want to tell stories, and whose work hasn’t been amplified to our liking. We’re working on a slate now that I’m so proud of, I can’t wait to share it.
So much of your music is infused in science-fiction, and now you’re moving into horror with Antebellum. What do you see as the power of genre?
I think it gives the consumer, the moviegoer, the television show-watcher, an opportunity to see life differently. With science-fiction and horror, even drama, depending on the innovative ways it’s told, you have the power to touch someone’s heart when maybe they weren’t expecting it, because they saw it in a different language or through a different set of tools.
We last saw you in Harriet — did it feel like a prophetic project? You sang about “leading like a young Harriet Tubman” in your song ‘Q.U.E.E.N.’.
Harriet Tubman is a superhero. She’s a person who I’ve always wanted to see on screen. Kasi [Lemmons, director] and Cynthia [Erivo] reached out to me to offer me the role of someone who would assist this Black woman who was leading other enslaved people to freedom. Marie was born free, so I wasn’t playing an enslaved person, but I still felt like, as Marie, I wasn’t fully free unless Harriet and the many people that we helped save were free. I still felt like it was my fight in that film. I think it shows what happens when we support other Black women who are in a position of power and who have a plan and a vision. When we support them, we help that plan get executed.
Whether it’s Marie in Harriet, or Teresa in Moonlight, you seem drawn to roles that offer encouragement and empowerment to others.
I don’t see those sorts of women honoured — women I deem as being heroic. Whenever I get a unique opportunity to do it, I always wanna do it. That’s my way of saying thank you.
A lot of people didn’t previously know the story behind Hidden Figures. What impact are you seeing from getting these
stories out there?
The beautiful thing is that it’s inspiring a whole new generation of kids to investigate these stories. That’s how you keep someone alive, in storytelling. Once you stop talking about the Harriet Tubmans and the hidden figures of the world, that’s honestly when they die. We can keep their dream alive, we can continue to educate. We recently lost Katherine Johnson [NASA mathematician, portrayed by Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures] — or, she lived.
I hate to say “died”. She lives on, you know? What she’s done will never be forgotten, and we’ll continue to amplify her voice and her story. The amount of kids and young girls who say, “I want to be in STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] now because I saw
Hidden Figures. Or, “I’m not going to give up because Mary Jackson [also NASA] didn’t give up. I’m gonna keep going, because Harriet Tubman kept going.” And it pertains to
Antebellum, too — I hope that young girls say, “I’m not going to be silenced, because Veronica Henley wouldn’t be silenced. I’m going to burn down the patriarchy, I’m going to build something new. I’m going to work with other women because, in this film, that’s how they got this done.”
Tell me about your experience on Moonlight — it’s such an extraordinary film. Did you have a sense of the cultural milestone it would become?
Oh, no. I mean, I knew what it represented to me, how deeply it touched my heart. But you never know what a film is going to do. You always start with trusting your gut — how does it make you feel?
How did Moonlight make you feel?
It made me feel many emotions. I felt deeply saddened, because I had met so many kids like Chiron in my life. I was also going through a period of my life where I was understanding my sexuality more and thinking, “Who are my family?” If I didn’t have them, what my life would be like, not having allies? Your family is your first tribe. Imagine being poor, young, Black, and not having that foundation. To be Teresa to a Chiron is life or death. That movie dealt with so many things that are familiar in my life — growing up with a parent who had to overcome an addiction, growing up lower class, having to have mentors help you and believe in you. It wasn’t easy for me. I felt like a lot of other people would connect to the story. Once I’m moved, that’s how I decide if I’m going to do something — if it makes me scared, or if it makes me feel, “I know so many Chirons and Teresas, but where are they on screen?” This representation is important.
So much of your music is steeped in Afrofuturism. What was it like seeing both the aesthetic and the ideas of Afrofuturism enter the mainstream in such a huge way with Black Panther?
It was paramount. Black Panther was gamechanging. As someone who’s used sciencefiction in my music, in my art, since the beginning of my career, I was so happy to see it become this box-office hit. And a hit, in my opinion, is it feeling authentically Black, authentically Ryan [Coogler, director]. It didn’t feel corporate. I felt my ancestors in that film. I was so proud to see it, so proud of the message that it sent — that yes, we can grow a large amount of money being our authentic selves. There is success in authenticity, in being unapologetically Black, in Black people in the science-fiction and fantasy world.
You cited the Dora Milaje and Wakandan Vibranium as influences on songs from your latest album Dirty Computer. What’s it like to be in conversation with the culture?
It’s beautiful. I hope that I can partner with more like-minded producers and writers and directors to continue to not make it an anomaly. I want there to be a flowing water, a river of films that prove we’re here to stay, we’re built to last. That there’s just not going to be one Black Panther, but we’ll have other films that can hopefully make just as big of a splash and be rooted in authenticity, rooted in Blackness, rooted in Afrofuturism.
Have you spoken to Ryan Coogler about Black Panther 2? Are you making that call?
I have definitely mentioned it. When they were doing Black Panther they were all in Atlanta, and I was there working on Dirty Computer. A lot of the cast members are my friends — Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan, Chadwick Boseman, Daniel Kaluuya. They would come over to Wondaland and listen to the album before it came out, and they would talk to me about the film. It was a great energy that was happening. After seeing the film and talking to Ryan, I definitely have thrown it out there. One of my dreams has always been to play [X-men’s] Storm. I don’t know if she comes in in Black Panther, but it would be a dream to have her in it. I don’t know where they are with that. A lot of women have played Storm and they’ve done an exceptional job, and I would love to be in that line of artists and get to do Storm justice.
Next up you’re in Gloria Steinem biopic The Glorias. What appealed to you about it?
Gloria Steinem is such a hero. In a time that women were told more than ever not to collaborate, when this country was segregated, she figured out a way to work with so many women and people from different backgrounds, classes, and ethnicities. She represents what it’s like for us to get shit done. I was super-proud to play Dorothy Pitman Hughes, who helped her start [famous feminist publication] Ms. magazine. Dorothy helps her get over her speech fears — it’s because of her that Gloria can speak and be more relaxed and communicate more effectively. These women really helped Gloria, and she helped them. This will be a story of what worked and what didn’t work in the past, and what we can take with us now to get more shit done. ANTEBELLUM IS COMING SOON TO CINEMAS