Naomie lights up the screen with a spark of natural movie magic

Naomie Harris made her director cry — but she didn’t do it on purpose.

The actress has played miss moneypenny in recent James Bond pictures, but has been garnering awards season attention for a very different role in a small independent film called moonlight.

she plays Paula: a drugaddicted single mother struggling to raise her withdrawn son in miami.

it was tough for director Barry Jenkins (below right) to keep his emotions in check while shooting the film, inspired by Tarell alvin MCCRANEY’s play in moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.

‘Both my mum and Tarell’s mum were drug addicts,’ Jenkins told me in London on monday, the day after both he and Harris had landed prizes from the British independent Film awards for their picture.

Three actors — alex Hibbert, ashton sanders and Trevante rhodes — play Paula’s son Chiron through three stages of his life: from a young schoolboy to a strapping young man in his 20s.

Harris had to pack nearly 15 years of Paula’s life into just three days of filming.

one scene, involving her and rhodes, required her to light a cigarette and smoke it.

‘Naomie doesn’t smoke; and doesn’t drink — and so she couldn’t light the cigarette,’ Jenkins recalled. ‘she genuinely had trouble with the damn cigarette, so i quietly told Trevante to reach over and take the cigarette, light it, and give it back to her.’

The moment seemed to unlock something in Harris, who went off-script. ‘she said: “i’m so sorry, i’m so sorry,”’ Jenkins recounted. ‘on set, that moment made everybody weep. i was probably crying the most.’

it was the first moment of tenderness Paula and Chiron had shown each other.

Until then, the few glimpses of kindness you see involve the relationship that develops between the young Chiron, a drug dealer called Juan (played by mahershala ali, who has been scooping every critics award going) and Juan’s girlfriend (Janelle monae). The film doesn’t follow the usual trope that dictates that Juan must harm Chiron in some way. ‘Juan’s a complicated man,’ Jenkins said. ‘When you see a child and a man of that age, you’re not sure what’s going to happen.’ But as you travel deeper into this movie, you realise that all Juan wants to do is take care of the boy. Both Jenkins and MCCRANEY survived destructive upbringings in miami. Jenkins (and Harris) will continue to pick up award nominations (the Golden Globes are announced on monday). and MCCRANEY — who won a prestigious macarthur fellowship three years ago — has just been named chairman of the drama department at Yale. moonlight will be released here in February.