‘This movie could be a
love letter to those who have gone through
Direct Provision’
Letitia Wright
Black Panther star Letitia Wright talks about why she put Hollywood on hold to star in powerful Irish film Aisha,
placing purpose before success and her friendship with
the late Chadwick Boseman
At the age of 14, as a schoolkid in the north London area of Tottenham with dreams of becoming an actress, Black Panther star Letitia Wright created a vision board in her bedroom. On it, she set out her ambitions for her notoriously aspirational choice of career. She stuck a Bafta on it. And an Oscar, of course. The biggest goal, she wrote out, was to do acting that inspired the next generation, acting that had impact.
“I did that, and listened to a lot of motivational content. I was delusional, in the sense that I blocked out any ‘realistic’ views on my choices to be an artist. I felt it was society’s way of trying to rob me from my future and belief in myself from a very young age,” she says. “And now, I have little sisters that look up to me. And I’m a toy.”
Fourteen years since she first laid out her vision board, she looks at me incredulously, as if to repeat how clearly it came to be: she’s a toy — for her role as Shuri in Black Panther, the 2018 Marvel blockbuster that bestowed a mainstream attention that was a long time coming. Happily, it also gave her the Bafta specified on the board.
The reason for our meeting is proof of her continued influence and impact: we’re here to discuss Aisha — Peter Frank Berry’s film about a Nigerian refugee’s turmoil as she’s kept in limbo within the Direct Provision system — and it lands at the same time as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, in which she blazes another trail by in stepping into the film’s main role.
Not that you’d guess her superhero status talking to her. In an oversized, slouchy suit that swallows up her fragile frame, her opening gambit as we sit is to apologise for tucking her hands away to keep warm; it has just reached that time of year where an open window brings in the chill. She quickly and quietly berates herself for apologising needlessly.
But talk about her work, and there’s an assurance that inevitably comes with indisputable facts. From her appearance in dystopian drama Black Mirror to a place in Steve McQueen’s masterful vignettes of Black British history Small Axe, the consistent quality, quantity and profile of her work has singled her out as one of this generation’s finest talents.
It’s apparent in Aisha, a rare film that brought together Sky Cinema, BBC Film and RTÉ among others. It’s a painfully intimate portrait of life within Direct Provision, the system created ‘temporarily’ in 2000 that sees asylum seekers kept in often abysmal temporary housing, waiting for an average forof 24 months while their claims are processed. Along the lines of Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, it shows with simplicity and devastating effect the human effectimpact of a broken system.
“I felt like Aisha had meaning and purpose and could say something,” she says, explaining the reason why she paused her ascent in Hollywood to take a part in this small-budget art house film.
“I go where my heart is leading me and where God is leading me. I go where the good stories are, whether it be a big blockbuster or a beautiful film in Ireland such as Aisha. And Aisha is one of those that stay with you because it’s so real, and so connected to people’s truth.”
Her own experience of moving from Guyana to London as a child helped her to channel Aisha’s feeling of displacement, though her family moved for a better life rather than out of necessity. “But you definitely can relate to what it means to have the courage to pick up all your things and try to find safety somewhere else,” she says.
On screen, the opening scenes show Aisha Osaglie as she endures the simple annoyance of being unable to pick up her own mail at the Direct Provision centre without her all-important ID card, so she’s late for work at a beauticians.
“Where are you from?” a customer asks innocently as Aisha washes her hair. But it’s far from small talk, not least because Aisha fled Nigeria after the murder of her brother and father at the hands of a moneylender. Throughout the film, we see the rights that we take for granted stripped away from her, and humility added in between. “It would be great to have more detail on the attack on your home. I know this will be difficult, but try and put them in the room, if you know what I mean,” her immigration lawyer tells her ahead of a hearing. If you’re not wild with frustration by the end of the film, you’re not watching it right.
Peter Frank Berry’s script stemmed from his work on Michael Inside in 2018, another blistering slice of social realism, which exposed the State systems that failed instead of supported. Four years of research, including in-depth interviews, went into the script of Aisha; Wright claims that nothing was in the script that didn’t come from the first-hand accounts.
So while she didn’t know about Direct Provision before reading the script, the research had been done for her. “Frank, as an Irish citizen, was able to dive deeper into it. I was brought into it at the beginning of the filming process, so I haven’t been able to dive into that aspect of the education as I had wanted to,” she says.
“But what I’ve learnt so far, by connecting with people who have gone through it, is that you hope there could be a discussion of a positive change. The honour of being an artist is you get to provide a voice for the voiceless, you get to provide a space for people’s emotions to take up room, and I feel like I can connect to those who are actively trying to fight for something that feels meaningful.
“People connect to a cinema in such a different way. Like a song — you could feel heartbroken and you don’t know how to express this heartbreak, but you listen to one song and it expresses the heartbreak. I feel our movie is like that. This movie could, if supported well by the audience, be a love letter to those who have gone through this to say, ‘Hey, I see you.’ We’re hoping that as the world takes a look into this film in the real world, there’s positive change.”
Filming took place in Dublin over six weeks in spring 2021. Joining her was Josh O’Connor (The Crown, The Durrells), who plays a security guard that she befriends. Far from the ‘white saviour’ role that was suggested when details of the film first came out, O’Connor represents the invisible barriers that prevent Aisha from finding community — that most fundamental of needs. Their relationship is intimately played out, with O’Connor putting on a surprisingly decent inner-city Dublin accent for the role.
“It was so unfair. I had my own accent consultant and he had the whole crew,” Wright says, laughing. “If he got something wrong, the crew members would be like, ‘Buddy, it’s said like this.’ He had an army of accent coaches.”
The hectic filming schedule meant that there wasn’t free time to explore while Wright was stationed in Dublin, especially as she was in most scenes. “Josh had lots of days off, so he’d tell me all about going swimming and seeing the ocean. I was like, ‘Grr.’ It was my first time, so I definitely want to go back, especially in the summer so I can do some rock climbing and hiking.”
Since Berry began the project, the Government has announced plans to dismantle the Direct Provision system by 2024. But the swift response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis — where those escaping Putin’s war were immediately granted the right to work, benefits and services, plus homes in people’s housesif not Direct Provision centres — has led for calls for a similar approach to be taken to those living in Direct Provision.
“You can understand how someone can feel not seen in those moments, and I feel this movie could shed a light on ways in which people are waiting in limbo for help, and how it could stop them from thriving and moving forward with their life in a positive way.
“You hope that the people who are in positions to make those changes will do it. The simplicity of wanting to look after yourself is just a human right. You don’t want to feel like you don’t deserve that.”
Two years after the teenage Letitia Wright created her clairvoyant vision board, she took her first steps to making those dreams come true. She enrolled at the Identity School of Acting, the same diversity-encouraging drama school that also trained John Boyega (Star Wars, The Woman King). The school’s founder Femi Oguns described Wright as a quieter student, but “needle in a haystack”, and promptly signed her to his agency.
The roles came in thick and fast — first a cameo Holby City (a rite of passage for every actor in the UK, it seems), then gritty urban movie Victim. The first of her many critically acclaimed roles was in Top Boy, the cult Channel 4 drama series, recently revived by Netflix, where she played a gang member. But vision board in mind, she turned down the second series to pursue her loftier ambitions. During our conversation, she doesn’t mention it by name, but does reference a job she backed out of early on in her career.
“That was a difficult moment because you’re already in it, and people think you’re crazy for leaving. But I am proud of myself because, at that time, I was 17. Though I respected the project and the people who were part of it, I saw myself in a different way as a young black woman.”
The blinkered vision she talks about was needed given the fact she was a young, black woman, for whom society’s traditionally done few favours. Her ambitions, she realised, could only be fulfilled if she rose above her gender and ethnicity.
“If I found myself in a room and I knew the writer intended that character to be Caucasian, I believed so much that I could bring something different. It didn’t need to be about my colour, but about my talent. It was about who’s the best person to represent this human being on the page. And I’d walk away with the role.”
A case in point: after Top Boy, and a period of depression that she was pulled out from by finding her Christian faith, Wright took the lead in Michael Caton-Jones’s Urban Hymn. Not dissimilar to the gritty realism of Aisha, it’s another heartbreaker of a story about a disenfranchised young woman struggling to clear the hurdles in the way — this time as a teenager in a social-care setting. Played by Wright with subtlety, strength and sensitivity, it was a major turning point that got her noticed by the right people.
Then the big one hit: Black Panther. Her turn as the suit-making scientist sister propelled her onto a path that one couldn’t have imagined beforehand, not least because Shuri and T’Challa’s (Chadwick Boseman) sibling back-and-forths provided welcome levity, and made her something of the scene-stealer in the film —it was what earned her Bafta’s Rising Star Award.
“I just worked with what I was given, which was excellent, and I was able to have a breakthrough performance, which doesn’t happen all the time for everyone,” she says with a shrug.
It’s bittersweet that Wright steps into the central role after the death of Boseman in 2020 to colon cancer, an illness that was kept secret from fans until after his passing. While it places Wright at the centre of the sequel, flanked by Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o, she’s quick to point out that it’s an ensemble movie.
“For me, it was an opportunity for us all to come together with unity. There’s not one person that is the centre of attention and everybody has their key responsibilities in the film,” she says. “Ryan [Director Ryan Coogler] trusted me to follow Shuri’s journey through grief. And I’m in awe of that. He could have given that responsibility to anyone else.
“Shuri has definitely shifted in the ways you’ve seen her in Black Panther 1, in Endgame, in Infinity War, where she’s known as the sister that’s always up to mischief,” she says. “You see how broken-hearted this sister is in this new film. I used all of the connectivity and the love I have for Chad to do each scene justice,” she says.
Talk turns to Boseman and the loss of their friendship. She recalls fond memories of him, in particular the gifts he gave her after they wrapped on Black Panther. Wright keeps the details private, but recounts the note that accompanied them.
“In one part of the note, he wrote that I am perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect. He said I should just remain the light that I am, and the light that’s within me is beautiful. And he said he’s proud of the woman that I am becoming.
“When I read it in 2017 when we were wrapping, I was like, ‘Oh, this is cute,’ and I put it away. Now, looking back on it, it messes with me a little bit because he was seeing something that I didn’t see in myself.
“Now, each day I remind myself that I am perfectly imperfect, and I’m beautiful the way I am, and the light that’s within me is great. And I am also to be proud of the woman that I am becoming.”
Still on the ascent, the future looks bright indeed for Wright, who’s yet to hit 30. She recently started her own production company, Threesixteen Productions —named after a Bible verse — to give her more of a say in the projects she works on. And early next year, she’ll star in post-Civil War drama Surrounded, alongside The Wire’s Michael K Williams (in his last performance before his untimely death last year). After that, the aim is to surprise.
“I’m hoping to flip your head, for you to think, ‘Dang, I thought I understood her. I thought she was a Marvel superstar. I thought she was an independent. She does the lovely stories but now she’s doing this. She’s an artist.’ I’m following the Tilda Swintons of the world where you don’t know what you’re going to do next.”
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Wright, it’s that if she sets out to achieve something, it’s only a matter of time before she does.
‘Aisha’ is released in cinemas and on Sky Cinema on November 17
Words by
Shilpa Ganatra
Photography by
Marcin Kempski
Letitia Wright with co-star Josh O’Connor in Aisha
If I knew the writer intended that character to be Caucasian, I believed so much that
I could bring something different
People connect to cinema in such a different way.
Like a song — you could feel heartbroken and you don’t know how to express this heartbreak, but you listen to one song and it expresses the heartbreak. I feel our
movie is like that.
Letitia Wright with the late Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther
Read More
Pierce Brosnan: ‘It takes a mighty man to stand in front of 200 people in a motion-capture suit which is very tight’
Niamh Algar: ‘Florence Pugh is this superstar but she has the kindest heart, and she works so hard making sure everyone is seen and heard’