The American dream: made in England
Glass talks to break-out star Lashana Lynch about James Bond, Hollywood’s British takeover, and being brought up Jamaican in west London.
Lashana Lynch. Photograph: Ssam Kim
“HMM …” Lashana Lynch is pensive but surefooted – even over the phone her positivity is disarming. “I mean … hmm. Do you see how interesting that is, though?” In a discussion that has hot-stepped from English theatre to Hollywood’s Captain Marvel, we’ve ended up at Black Panther and the complex ramifications of its success. “Thing is, people outside of the black community will take something like Black Panther and find that acceptable because we are playing characters who share spaces with people similar to themselves.
But once we step outside of that and we play characters among a white world, suddenly it becomes this very confusing thing, where some people feel we’re taking something from them.” Not that she’s remotely bothered by half-baked notions of cultural theft: “I don’t entertain any of it … when it comes to anything that is invading my energy space, which I protect very well, I refuse it.”
Lashana Lynch. Photograph: Ssam Kim
Lynch knows better than most the knock-on effects of cultural infiltration, with her profile in Hollywood mushrooming off the back of playing characters whom audiences aren’t accustomed to seeing in mainstream cinema.
As Maria Rambeau she was a female African-American fighter jet pilot, and will-they-won’t-they love interest of Marvel’s first female and feminist superhero, Captain Marvel. Petitions and hysterical pre-release doomsaying was evidence enough that comic book traditionalists found all of the above “very confusing”.
Predictably, rumours that Lynch will be taking over as James Bond following Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die swansong have been met with familiar hysteria. All that’s known for sure is that, for the time being, she’s Nomi, an 00(7?) agent intent on taking off the current James Bond’s head.
I reach Lashana Lynch over the phone from New York, a day after she’s appeared on Good Morning America in the middle of Times Square, alongside Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux and director Cary Joji Fukunaga. Watching the segment back, she has the air of someone who’s chilling in her own backyard. She also possesses a smile so Hollywood that it redefines the term “megawatt”.
Are you really from Hammersmith – the London borough responsible for the befuddled charm and equally befuddled teeth of Hugh Grant? “Shepherd’s Bush, actually! People like to say Hammersmith, apparently, but I’m definitely from Bush.”
Lashana Lynch. Photograph: Ssam Kim
She may have been raised in west London, but Lynch stresses that she was brought up “in the most Jamaican of Jamaican ways, which means that I was essentially brought up by my grandmother. She is like, a proper traditional Jamaican woman who would sell in the market, stand up to men regularly; a pillar of her community. She was head of ‘pardner’ in Shepherd’s Bush, which is a Caribbean banking system; before we were able to use banks, [pardner] would enable people to buy their houses and take care of themselves among their community instead of relying on western banks.
“Our culture was everywhere – so much so that I actually didn’t feel part of the UK until I went to primary school. Everything else was very Jamaican – I went to the market, collected meat, did all the chores, did the pardner for my nan …”
There isn’t a resonant term in Britain relative to “the American Dream”, but there should be. Coming to the UK as part of the Windrush generation and watching your grand-daughter star in the most quintessentially British film franchise in existence, filming on location in Jamaica, is ridiculously romantic.
“It’s wonderful. I mean, I had to really ask myself when I got the role, what I could contribute to the franchise as a British Jamaican woman. Rather than just looking at a massive opportunity as a way to further my career, I’m thinking, ‘if you’re going to take on this black girl, know that it comes with the culture’ – and if you’re prepared to do that, then let’s collaborate.”
Lashana Lynch. Photograph: Ssam Kim
No Time to Die producer Barbara Broccoli agreed, and collaborate they did, with a few elements that they had to get right: “The food. Ha. Definitely the food. And the nightlife. There’s a club scene – people just on the streets at night – with that kind of bluey-black lighting shade, the very thick heat in the air … it’s caught wonderfully by Cary [Joji Fukunaga] who had an amazing backdrop to work with: the water, the night shade, the colour in people’s bodies; dark women, dark men on screen in brightly coloured costumes.
I felt like, ‘I’ve got to do my job, and it’s a big studio, and there’s a lot of responsibility’. But because I did get to shoot in Jamaica, it made me feel like I was at home within the production. It made me feel like they were taking care of what I brought to the production, you know what I mean?
Lashana Lynch. Photograph: Ssam Kim
“I just find it very enlightening how I was able to be myself among the Jamaican crew, and also show the British crew how we do it in Jamaica, introduce them to the ways of life there, let them really feel the heat when we’re shooting at night, and contend with the sounds of the insects and the birds and the trees. That felt really powerful to me. For something quintessentially British, it felt like a massive shift, not only in my career, but in the franchise – now you see Bond actually being a modern man in that world. It’s beautiful to watch and Daniel [Craig] does a great job.”
All of which begs the question, are we seeing the beginnings of James Bond: the 21st century man? “Hmm … he could change, but if he doesn’t I think it would make for a great story seeing women of this time contending with someone like him – wouldn’t it be exciting to watch the empowered, opinionated, very forward woman of 2020 compete with him and stand up to him and put him in his place? I think that’s a more exciting story – he can do whatever he wants to do as long as women are being authentic to themselves.”
Authenticity in Hollywood has taken on a new meaning of late, spawning conversations of “the right” to play certain roles, contingent on an actor’s lived experience. Daniel Kaluuya and Cynthia Erivo, in particular, have recently drawn the ire of some African American actors and critics for having the temerity to cross the pond, hoover up coveted roles and do outstanding work.
It’s worth remembering that British actors have been making appearances in US movies for decades, but characters have often been limited to nationality – play an American character well and suddenly you’re freed from having to play the one-dimensional, British stereotype. It’s been a significant shift, and it’s key to the beginnings of a real golden age for black British actors. It’s a cultural movement that Lynch is proud to be a part of.
Lashana Lynch. Photograph: Ssam Kim
“Well, we can do roles like that. That’s why they’re being done. Seriously, there is just so much talent in the UK, and it’s no wonder why so many people in the UK are getting their moment now – it has been a long time coming.” If it’s even possible to hear a smile over the phone, Lynch is beaming.
“I think the idea that roles are being stolen from one person to another is … well, it’s something I find very interesting. It reminds me of the crabs in a barrel mentality that I don’t personally stand for. I saw it a lot growing up in the black community. It saddens me when I see that’s something I’m still experiencing as an adult, as a human being on this earth let alone someone who has chosen to be in an industry where I thought I’d be able to share and learn from people from different parts of the world.”
“I’m here to learn – that is all I want to do. I want to work with great artists. I’ve seen them around the world and now I’m getting to experience it. So, I just hope that the work that everyone is doing – and not necessarily just black Brits – but the work that everyone is doing together will remind people that the black experience is everywhere, not in one given place.
“Anyway, it’s not even actually about me, but about the people I’m aiming to inspire and what they are taking away from this work. I hope that when I’m a pool of dust somewhere in hundreds of years that people will remember a change was made with the choices I made in my career. That is all I can hope for – everything else is none of my business.”
by Charlie Navin-Holder
First published in the Spring 2020 issue of Glass magazine
James Bond: No Time to Die is released September 30
Photographer SSAM KIM
Stylist STACEY CUNNINGHAM
Make up NICK BAROSE at EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS using GIORGIO ARMANI BEAUTY
Hair LACY REDWAY using NEXXUS
Manicurist JINI LIM at SEE MANAGEMENT using ROSE ALL DAY by SPELA COSMETICS
Production coordinator WINDY LEE
Photography assistant JACK WOOKJIN CHOI
Clothing Credits:
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Top DARA SENDERS
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Right ring NINA BERENATO
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Lashana’s left hand, left ring LADY GREY
Lashana’s left hand, right ring NINA BERENATO
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Dress MARA HOFFMAN
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Top VICTORIA HAYES
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Lashana’s right hand, RUSH JEWELRY DESIGN ring
Lashana’s left hand, left ring LADY GREY
Lashana’s left hand, right ring NINA BERENATO
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Watch OMEGA Constellation
Earrings MACHETE JEWELRY
Bracelet LAGOS
Left ring LADY GREY
Right ring NINA BERENATO