Lashana Lynch: ​‘A lot of nations need to own up to their history’

Lashana Lynch estab­lished her­self in UK the­atre long before she was cast as Maria Ram­beau in Cap­tain Mar­vel and lat­er as Nomi in No Time to Die, the first 007 por­trayed by some­one oth­er than a white man. In between block­busters she returned to the stage, team­ing up with Deb­bie Tuck­er Green for ear for eye at the Roy­al Court in 2018, which has now been adapt­ed into a film.

Both the film and the play are exper­i­men­tal and unflinch­ing, telling a sto­ry about Black­ness that defies both nar­ra­tive con­ven­tion and the­mat­ic sim­pli­fi­ca­tion (inci­den­tal­ly, both were also pro­duced by Bond pro­duc­er Bar­bara Broc­coli). While the film doesn’t have a pro­tag­o­nist per se, Lynch plays the largest role, giv­ing a per­for­mance that fur­ther dis­tin­guish­es her as a for­mi­da­ble talent.

LWLies: Dis­cus­sions around race have changed in the three years since the play. Do you think the expe­ri­ence of Black peo­ple has changed?

Lynch: Non-Black peo­ple have become more aware of racism. I think that’s the point to focus on. In order for things to actu­al­ly change in the Black com­mu­ni­ty, things need to change out­side of it. A lot of nations need to own up to their his­to­ry. Indi­vid­u­als need to ask ques­tions and lis­ten care­ful­ly and learn from what Black peo­ple have been say­ing for many, many years. I’m reluc­tant to use the word ​‘change’. I use the word ​‘shift’, because unless some­thing is con­crete and a bill is passed, I don’t trust it.

The­atre audi­ences are pre­dom­i­nant­ly white. Did you feel you were per­form­ing to peo­ple that didn’t know about the Black experience?

Every night was dif­fer­ent. It’s the Roy­al Court, so yes, it’s quite a white audi­ence. But also there was some real­ly cool, rad­i­cal young peo­ple that came who were ready to lis­ten, take the bull by the horns, and go into work the next day and have the nec­es­sary con­ver­sa­tions and make peo­ple feel uncom­fort­able. I kind of rel­ished in it. I would eaves­drop on people’s con­ver­sa­tions in the bar after­wards and be quite enter­tained with how uncom­fort­able they were. It’s def­i­nite­ly not a laugh­ing mat­ter, but it was quite com­i­cal just how much they often missed the point. Debbie’s work is so strong and sharp. It’s direct. With the film, she places some­thing in front of you and makes you ask ques­tions of your­self. That is a very pow­er­ful thing.

With­out hav­ing the ener­gy and dis­com­fort of the audi­ence to work with, was it dif­fer­ent being direct­ed and per­form­ing for the screen?

No, not at all. I’d worked for Deb­bie the pre­vi­ous year on a pro­found­ly affec­tion­ate, pas­sion­ate devo­tion to some­one at the Roy­al Court. We did ear for eye in the same the­atre. It just feels that the film is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the work that we’ve done. I’ve got­ten to know her as a cre­ative and respect her more and more with the deci­sions that she makes. I’m able to be an actor who appre­ci­ates a director’s work, but also a pupil who is able to real­ly sit and live and learn how to com­mu­ni­cate a nar­ra­tive or sev­er­al nar­ra­tives in one, with­out it feel­ing weighty. I always feel in such safe hands with Debbie.

She’s an enig­mat­ic fig­ure, but clear­ly one of Britain’s great direc­tors. Do you think she’s got­ten her due?

No. I think that most peo­ple who see her work has some­thing has land­ed in them. They’ve appre­ci­at­ed it. But if peo­ple are uncom­fort­able with a top­ic, they throw it away. If you are ready for the con­ver­sa­tion, you prob­a­bly will thank her for­ev­er for ignit­ing some­thing in you. This film is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to learn who Deb­bie is as a cre­ative and just how much her unortho­dox ways work and are nec­es­sary for this indus­try. I think peo­ple will be inspired by the rad­i­cal film­mak­ing style as well.

You’ve worked on both sides of the Atlantic and in this you are play­ing an Amer­i­can. What are the big dif­fer­ences between the African-Amer­i­can ver­sus Black British experiences?

I pre­fer to focus on the sim­i­lar­i­ties. There’s a real ten­den­cy to sep­a­rate the Black expe­ri­ence, to divide us even more than we are already divid­ed. And it’s not some­thing that the Black com­mu­ni­ty has done on its own. It’s peo­ple out­side of the Black com­mu­ni­ty who have facil­i­tat­ed this very seg­re­gat­ed way of liv­ing, which pre­vents oth­er nations from learn­ing about their own Black expe­ri­ence. If we focus on the vari­a­tions, then we’re not able to appre­ci­ate that we all come from the same place and we should all be work­ing towards the same goal. It’s so interconnected.

What makes your seg­ment feel unique­ly Amer­i­can is the mass shoot­ing ele­ment. Why was a pro­fes­sor and a stu­dent dis­cussing mass shoot­ings a use­ful frame­work for dis­cussing race?

It shows how we han­dle men­tal health with­in dif­fer­ent races. If a Black per­son were to shoot up a school or a church, they would nev­er be afford­ed the men­tal health card. It infu­ri­ates me when we don’t see how stark the dif­fer­ence is when dis­cussing a Black per­son com­mit­ting a crime. I will be very inter­est­ed to see how peo­ple take that argu­ment, actu­al­ly. For some peo­ple, there won’t be a right or wrong answer. Even say­ing ​“the men­tal health card” is an uncom­fort­able thing, because men­tal health needs to be tak­en seri­ous­ly but it’s used as a card for a young white boy to be pro­tect­ed by the police when a young Black boy would nev­er get that. It shouldn’t stop at the film. It needs to form a mas­sive dis­cus­sion and rever­ber­ate out­side of the Black community.

It real­ly stayed with me when you say, ​“We aren’t allowed to be them.”

There are going to be a hell of a lot of peo­ple who miss that line and who miss it com­ing from Black women. I don’t want to pre-empt the audience’s reac­tion, but I know that there’s cer­tain things that aren’t going to land. I real­ly implore peo­ple to look at it twice, three times, five times if you need to, in order for you to see where the frus­tra­tion in the Black com­mu­ni­ty comes from when watch­ing the news and see­ing that.

When Dylann Roof mur­dered nine Black peo­ple, the police took him safe­ly into cus­tody and bought him a Burg­er King.

Yeah. They didn’t want to hurt him. It’s a sys­tem that is set against melanat­ed peo­ple. It goes back to what I was say­ing before, that with­out nations hav­ing prop­er dis­cus­sions about their his­to­ry, nothing’s going to change. Hence why I don’t use the word ​‘change’.

How do you think peo­ple should read the dynam­ic between you and Demetri Gorit­sas’ character?

He should be seen as vil­lain­ous because it is every­day. For some­thing to be every­day in that way and still be classed as casu­al… That behav­iour is clear­ly very prob­lem­at­ic, and the fact it is so casu­al is an issue. On one lev­el, he’s a pro­fes­sor try­ing to teach a stu­dent and giv­ing her a run for her mon­ey. But when you get down to the meat and bones of it, it is a white man not han­dling a Black woman in the way that she deserves, and not giv­ing her the voice to speak her truth in the way that he can because he was born white.

Do you think this film achieves any­thing that the play wasn’t able to?

Reach. I love the­atre, but these incred­i­ble con­ver­sa­tions need to rever­ber­ate through­out the world. It is also hope­ful­ly going to be a way of get­ting some struc­tur­al change with­in our indus­try which should have been looked at a long time ago. Not just for a few months because Black Lives Mat­ter was in the news, but actu­al­ly reach­ing the heads of stu­dios, the pro­duc­ers, the film­mak­ers that have the pow­er to fund scripts like this which have been sit­ting on their shelves for decades. So there’s a lot, but I look for­ward to see­ing what the reac­tion is going to be.

eye for eye will pre­mière on 16 Octo­ber at the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val, BBC Two and iPlayer.