119Cover storybeginning. I sawDo The Right Thingwhen I was a kid,
and watched a bunch of his movies in high school. He
was the first person who made me understand what an
auteur really is.’
Your look at the recent Met Gala was very bold,
and you seem to have a real eye for fashion.
Has that always been the case?
‘I’ve been a fan of Nicolas [Ghesquière] since I was
a kid and he was at Balenciaga. I don’t know why;
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and wasn’t exposed
to anything to do with fashion, but I just loved clothes.
Now, I get to work with him and wear his clothes all the
time – it’s so weird. And being at the Met Ball was very
surreal. It’s like, “I’m here, and everybody I ever grew
up seeing in films or music is here, too.”’
Do you ever feel that there’s a conflict between
the frothiness of fashion and the red carpet,
and speaking out on issues, as you have, such as climate change?
‘I don’t think that one negates the other. You can be a woman, and love fashion and
clothes, and that doesn’t mean you don’t care about big issues. I don’t understand why
it’s like, “OK, you’re wearing a pretty dress, you’re not a feminist.”’
You dropped out of NYU to model, but gave it up pretty quickly. What did
you dislike about it?
‘Modelling meant I was able to live here [in New York] at a really young age and be
independent and travel, but the job itself wasn’t for me. But it was different then. Girls
have so much more individuality now, and different types of women are celebrated.
When I was a model, it was literally just skinny white Russian girls, so nobody was
booking me for jobs. I’d go to meetings at agencies in Paris and they’d sign me, and
then they’d say, “Oh, we already have a black girl.” It was just unapologetically racist.
Fortunately, I think that’s changing.’
What are the roles that you want to play next?
‘I want to do romantic comedies and other films in which you don’t see people who look
like me; movies where you’ve never really seen people who don’t look like Kate
Hudson. I don’t know what people’s thought process was when they believed that
audiences couldn’t connect to seeing people of colour fall in love.’
Would you consider writing or producing in order to get those films made?
‘Yes, definitely. That’s something I’m working on now. I’m developing some adaptations
of books. I can’t say anything more about them at this point, but I’m going to make sure
I get my romantic comedy moment.’therewillbe more nails, and many more Met Galas inthe future
- Harrier’s star is in the ascendant.
You’re part of a generation of young actors who are very
committed to activism and not wary of speaking out.
Do you see it as a responsibility that comes with having
a public profile?
‘I think there’s obviously more of a space for your voice to be heard
and to be more in control of your voice because of social media - it has presented a whole new platform for people. And using
our voices feels natural to my entire generation. But I’m also very
wary of celebrity activism. I don’t consider myself an activist.
I’m a human being with opinions and morals, but it seems that as
soon as you’re in the public eye and you’re somebody who does that,
all of a sudden you are “an activist”. To me, activists are people who
are standing on the front lines in Ferguson [Missouri].’
Did you learn anything new about black history playing
Patrice, your activist character inBlacKkKlansman?
‘Before we started filming, Spike [Lee] gave me a reading list, and
I went to some of his classes – he’s a tenured professor at NYU
[New York University] – and watched a lot of interviews with
[revolutionary student activist] Angela Davis, on whom Patrice is
partially based. It gave me such a deeper understanding of black
history, because, in my public high school, I didn’t learn about the
Black Panthers or the Black Power Movement. I read about Martin
Luther King, but never learnt about Malcolm X. There is a huge
part of American history that has been whitewashed away.’
You’ve just wrapped filmingBioswith Tom Hanks. Does it
feel as if work has kicked into another gear for you since
BlacKkKlansman’shuge success?
‘Yes, it definitely changed my life, and working with Spike was one of
the biggest opportunities I could have wished for. I’ve admired him
and his work my whole life. He’s shaped American film-making; he’s
shaped black film-making. I wouldn’t be an actor if it wasn’t for him –
he’s put people that looked like me on screen in such a wider space
than anyone did before, and he’s told black people’s stories since the
‘Using our voices feelsnatural to my entire generation’