KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR
The actor who has just played Malcolm X and Barack Obama, and is only getting warmed up.
HE TOOK ON PLAYING MALCOLM X AND BARACK OBAMA SIMULTANEOUSLY. NOW HE’S READY FOR MORE
A LONDON STREET, SWEARING AT a cleaning machine, is pretty much the last place you’d expect to find a guy who has become famous for playing legendary American icons. Yet that’s exactly where Kingsley Ben-adir is when we call him in late May. “This fucking street-cleaner," he booms down the phone,
“is moving along the pavement at the exact same pace as me!”
Ben-adir is direct, straight-shooting, and not averse to the odd burst of casual swearing. He’s quick when the subject of British cinema comes up to name two of his favourite Brit-flicks: Nil By Mouth and The Firm. “I got rid of all my DVDS and only have about a dozen now — I kept those films,” he says. “Nil By Mouth — it’s part of why I’m doing what I’m doing.” Both of those are tough, London-based dramas. But lately the actor’s own career has taken him more often to the US, where he has managed to convince as some of the most towering figures of American cultural and political life. As a result, the last year has been a huge one for the charming star; with 21 award nominations (including from BAFTA) leading to a staggering seven wins.
In Regina King’s One Night In Miami, he embodies both the paranoia and the moral resolve of Malcolm X, a year before the activist’s murder in 1965. Ben-adir’s performance is a masterclass in coiled tension and surprising tenderness, always subtly modulated so as not to dip into showiness. For Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule, meanwhile, the actor was tasked with the daunting role of Barack Obama, one of the most recognisable men in the world, and he nails it with gravitas.
Both of these performances are made all the more remarkable given the circumstances under which they were created. Ben-adir had only 12 days to prep for his Miami audition after another actor dropped out, meaning, as he puts it, there was “no time to digest anything but the piece, the part, and how to approach each day.” In some respects, he says that it was a blessing in disguise, keeping his focus where it needed to be. Even more impressively, the two projects were shot at the same time, with Ben-adir having to
switch gears repeatedly over a three-month period to accommodate both productions. “I feel like through that process, I learned how to juggle, and stay calm even when stuff is busy,” he reflects. “I came out the other end interested in stories where I feel challenged and out of my comfort zone.”
The psychological side of the challenge was rewarding. “With the research, as I started looking back, I understood more about what was going on for [Malcolm X] at this time,” Ben-adir says, nodding to the fact that the activist had a sense of foreboding about his future. But he also relished the physical and vocal work. To play Malcolm X, he dropped 20lb of weight, dyed his hair red, and closely listened to recordings of the activist’s speeches to shift from a London accent to a Harlem cadence. “It made me interested in acting that involves a certain degree of transformation,” he says. “It’s about finding that right line between something that’s connected to you, but still has the essence of that person.”
Although One Night in Miami is director Regina King’s debut film, she is of course a veteran actor, and began directing after an Oscar win for her performance in Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk. King’s sensitivity towards actors, Ben-adir thinks, was crucial in helping him to balance the performance. She came to him regularly with ideas and allowed the actors to experiment on set. “Really special ones, like Regina — you just want to be in their orbit and learn from them. She had so many excellent ideas. And I think in the edit, she added those finishing touches to be sure nothing was underor over-energised.”
Between takes, he remained in character as Malcolm X, something that helped him maintain the right tempo. “Without sounding pretentious, you save a lot of time and energy if you stay in it,” he says. “If the lead actors are all intensely focused on each beat, that has a trickling effect. Sometimes it’s not required, but because of the people we were playing, it felt like something to focus on. With those big scenes in the room, you’re sometimes filming 14 pages.” He pauses and laughs. “But when I was in [ITV drama] Vera, I wasn’t going around between takes pretending to be a doctor or anything.”
Ben-adir has been honing his skills since his days at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and in his early days he did quick stints on TV shows such as Marple and Midsomer Murders. But after a spell on Peaky Blinders from 2017 to 2019, it was Netflix sci-fi drama The OA that took him over the top, his dogged, charismatic private detective character taking centre-stage in the second season and garnering plenty of positive attention. There have been ups and downs, and dry spells in-between the best roles, but Ben-adir has aimed to learn from every experience.
“So much luck is involved in getting a shot or when an opportunity comes through,” he says. “But without obsessive curiosity, I certainly wouldn’t still be doing this. I want to find stuff out. I think I still am shamelessly inquisitive about the craft.”
ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI BLEW UP when it was released at the start of the year, praised critically and earning three Oscar nominations. Despite winning those seven awards for his performance — including an Independent Spirit Award — Ben-adir was not nominated for an Oscar, but the fact he was a major part of the conversation is remarkable given it was his first major movie role. Now the question is: what next? He struggles to articulate what he is looking for in the blizzard of scripts coming his way, before settling on: “The feeling. It doesn’t happen very often. When something about the human experience feels very real. It’s a tricky thing to describe without sounding generic... or using shit words like ‘powerful’.”
One thing that is coming up is new Marvel Disney+ show Secret Invasion, which is set to begin filming this autumn in the UK and around Europe. Ben-adir will star alongside acting heavyweights Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn. Asked about whether he is playing a villain as rumoured, Ben-adir is coy. “I don’t really know if I’d call him a villain. Is he a villain? I don’t know,” he says. “But I couldn’t say no to Ben and Samuel. I’ve had so many security meetings and stuff. They got into my head! Like: just don’t say anything. I was like, ‘Do people really care?’ But I guess they do.”
Still, it’s not only big superhero flicks that interest the actor, who admits that finding a balance between projects can be hard. “There are a couple of indies on the top of my list that I really want to do. But they’re just harder to get made. If you don’t have a big name, or certain trophies under your belt, or you don’t pair yourself up with other stars, finance gets a bit tricky. So sometimes the bigger-budget stuff helps to balance it out and helps you make the smaller stuff.” As for genre, he has no preference, in spite of his professed love for Brit crime flicks. He insists that it’s simply a matter of whether there is something stimulating about playing the character — “whether it’s past, present, voiceover, cartoon, whatever”. He seems to be able to turn his hand to anything, and while chameleonic as a performer, there is also something uniquely recognisable about Ben-adir. He’s memorable even in minor roles, with a pensive, quietly masculine quality that demands respect without ever working too hard for it.
And even while breaking through himself, Ben-adir is conscious of, as he puts it, “so many actors over the years who’ve been generous to me.” He seems keen to pass on a similar generosity to a younger generation of actors, including 18-year-old Bukky Bakray, star of British indie Rocks and fellow BAFTA EE Rising Star nominee (she won in the category they were both nominated for, and gave him a shout-out in her acceptance speech). “If we don’t share information, it’s really hard to learn and grow. And it stays in a certain box for certain people. Mentorship is so important,” he says. Just as he received advice in his youth, from actors like Mark Rylance and Michael Fassbender, Ben-adir is bringing it full-circle. As a teenager, hungry for knowledge and taking his first drama class, Ben-adir recalls thinking: “How the fuck do you do this for a job?” So what would teen Kingsley make of all this success?
“He’d be pretty overwhelmed. And pleasantly surprised. The dream came true. It’s lovely to feel like I’m a part of this industry, and I’ve been doing it now for ten years. There’s a warm feeling around just being able to do what you do. I feel really lucky.”
Luck might have something to do with it, but it’s Kingsley Ben-adir’s talent — and his determination — that sealed the deal.
ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI IS OUT NOW ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO. THE COMEY RULE IS CURRENTLY ON SKY AND NOW