LOVE &‘HATE’
Stenberg embraces breakout role as teen caught between two worlds
For Amandla Stenberg, “The Hate U Give” offers a breakthrough role in a critically praised film about real world issues of race, identity, violence and protest. Stenberg, at 19 a veteran actor since childhood, is known as the housebound teenager hoping for love in “Everything Everything.”
But Starr Carter in “The Hate U Give” is a heroine for the ages in Angie Thomas' bestselling young adult novel published last year.
While still in high school Stenberg had read the book in manuscript form and immediately committed to playing Starr.
“The book is an absolute gift to the world. I had heard the buzz about it from mutual friends of my mom and chased it really hard because I'd fallen in love with it,” she said.
“Hate” finds teenage Starr straddling two worlds: The mostly white school with a preppy boyfriend and a college future and her lower-income neighborhood where violence and drugs are facts of life.
“Starr,” Stenberg said, “is pretty isolated with that sort of dual identity and trying to be successful.
“It's a pretty common experience in the black community. We learn to do that from an early age. We're in spaces that are traditionally white that associate `black' as a loss of capabilities. We have to learn the language of whiteness to survive.”
One night while driving with her best friend Khalil (Algee Smith), they're stopped by a white cop who, mistaking Khalil's hairbrush for a gun, shoots and kills him.
Starr is urged to step up and testify. If she does, her life at school could be destroyed. Much worse, her family's safety is threatened by Khalil's boss, the local drug kingpin.
Stenberg saw Starr in intensely personal terms. “I felt I embodied some of the qualities Starr has and who she becomes around the work I've done with activism and certain topics.”
Along with director George Tillman Jr. and screenwriter Audrey Wells, Stenberg helped with the adaptation. “George Tillman brought me in as I am a black teenager, and I contributed my ideas.”
As to what exactly “The Hate U Give” means, she explains, “It's an acronym for THUG from Tupac (Shakur) about how the hate you give affects everyone.
“The discrimination you show to marginalized communities, that's detrimental to everyone, not just those who are persecuted and communities that have been marginalized.” (“The Hate U Give” opens Oct. 12.)