Zoe Kravitz talks diversity, Johnny Depp
Zoe Kravitz talks diversity and Johnny Depp as she steps into the wizarding world as Leta Lestrange in ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’, out today in the UAE
When JK Rowling set out to cast the latest instalment in the
Harry Potter film franchise, she instructed the producers to make the project racially diverse.
Since its inception in 2001, the bigscreen adaptations of the author’s bestselling books have been filled with mostly white actors. So for Fantastic
Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald — which hits UAE theatres today — the author-turned-screenwriter decided to give one of the film’s biggest roles to a person of colour.
Zoe Kravitz, 29, was cast as Leta Lestrange, a pure-blood witch who found solace at Hogwarts alongside a fellow outsider, the creature-loving Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne).
The actress, daughter of The Cosby
Show star Lisa Bonet and musician Lenny Kravitz, has steadily made a name for herself in Hollywood over the past decade. She’s played supporting roles in big action franchises X-Men and Divergent, and last year landed a major gig opposite Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman on HBO’s Big Little
Lies. She recently wrapped the second season of the Emmy-winning programme and is working on a television adaption of High Fidelity for Disney’s new streaming service, in which she will play the lead.
In other words: Why are we still bringing up her parents?
“I feel like I’ve proven I’m here to stay, and I’ve worked hard to be here,” she says. “For a very long time, I felt like I had to avoid talking about them because I wanted people to see me as an individual. It’s nice that I don’t feel like I have to stray away from that now, because it’s nice to talk about them. I love them.”
How important was it to you that as Leta Lestrange you have the biggest role for a person of colour in the history of the Harry Potter franchise?
I thought it was really important. And this takes places in the 1920s, so what was it like to be a person of colour in this world at this time? She might have been one of the only children of colour in Hogwarts at that time. She’s an outcast and whether it’s spoken about or not, I associate that, of course, partly with what she looks like.
I think they were mostly only auditioning women of colour for this role. I know it was an important thing for Jo. She was very aware of what she was doing.
This is the next big action franchise you’ve done after the Divergent series. Does it feel different?
I think these movies are better. So that makes a difference. What’s so great is I don’t have to pretend that it’s good.
What Jo does is she’s created this fantastical world, but her characters really are based in truth and they’re interesting and they’re complicated. She’s not just trying to razzle-dazzle the audience with special effects. There’s a message and there’s humanity.
Some fans see the villainous Grindelwald — who is played by Johnny Depp — as a metaphor for President Trump. Do you buy that?
I think it could be Trump. I think it could be Hitler... I think this film is incredibly timely and relevant, and what’s so interesting to me about Grindelwald and how Johnny plays him is there’s something seductive about what he’s saying. It’s not just, ‘OK, that’s the bad guy.’ You want to lean in and listen to him, and everyone you’re meeting in the film has to make a choice about who they are and what they believe in. I think we are in that time right now in the world where people need to make a choice. Show up, vote, speak to your family members about white supremacy. I hope that people will leave the film feeling encouraged to make the decisions to take that leap.
There’s been a huge push for diversity in film across the industry over the past few years. Have you seen that reflected in the work you’re offered?
Now people are so conscious about diversity, and I don’t want a movie set to look like a United Colors of Benetton ad. You want it to look legitimate. You don’t want it to look calculated, and you also don’t want to feel like, ‘OK, we need an Asian guy here’ — you don’t want to feel like a token person or you’re checking a box, so it is difficult to make it feel authentic and real. My biggest pet peeve is that most scripts put the nationality or the colour of the person’s skin — except for the Caucasian characters. So they’ll put, like, ‘Jessica, 24, attitude,’ and two pages down you’ll read ‘Simon, African American.’ And I’ll be like, ‘So I am supposed to know that the story is about a white person and then we put people of colour in certain places to create accents?’ It’s upsetting.
Did you have any feelings about being in a film with Depp?
Yeah, I was stoked. I’m a fan. There was some backlash when he was cast in this film because his ex-wife, Amber Heard, accused him of domestic abuse — charges he has denied. Did that concern you? I don’t think that’s any of my business. And I also believe in second chances for certain people, depending on what we’re talking about. But I’m not the head of casting at Warner Bros. I’m here to do my job; he’s here to do his job. You’ve played many supporting roles, are you itching to be cast as the lead in a movie? It’s gonna happen when it’s supposed to happen. I feel myself growing as an actor every job I do. If I think about where I was 10 years ago, I don’t think I was ready to carry a film then. I think I’m getting to that place, and it’ll be exciting when it does happen.
“What Jo does is she’s created this fantastical world, but her characters really are based in truth...” ZOE KRAVITZ | Actress