The Nigerian-British actress, who stars in M Night Shyamalan’s Knock At The Cabin, turns to her WhatsApp group, fellow cast and her mother’s generation for top viewing tips.
When you’re on set, you have a lot of time to chat to other creators and actors between set-ups, and quite often we do talk about films.
I have different friends for different genres, like when I was working on the comedy series Avenue 5, an actor called Zach Woods and I would talk for ages about independent films and European cinema. He got me into directors like Céline Sciamma.
An actress friend of mine, Cherrelle Skeete, has started a great WhatsApp group called Blacktress — the clue is in the title. She lets us all know new projects coming out with actresses of colour that we can support and events that are happening. When Black Panther: Wakanda Forever came out, a mutual friend of ours, [actor] Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, put on an event called Peckanda Forever in Peckham [south London]. He rented out one of the huge cinemas, Peckhamplex, and everyone was invited to come in African dress. It was really celebratory.
Outside of the industry, I tend to go to my older friends for recommendations, from my mum’s generation. They raised me on the classics, and when they’re looking to go to the cinema and to take themselves out of the house, they are looking to be intellectually stimulated.
Online, I’ll go to YouTube and watch a lot of behind-the-scenes clips or radio interviews. I love The Breakfast Club, which is a radio show in New York, and I’ll read the culture sections of The Guardian and The New York Times.
A couple of years ago, when Bafta was restructuring, I was invited to become a member. It’s become a real gamechanger for me — as a film buff, at this time of year when all the films that are in consideration are coming into your inbox, I feel like a kid in a candy store. I thought TÁR with Cate Blanchett was mind-blowing. I try to watch a film a day, but then you see a film like that, and you need a few days to process it.
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