‘Belle’: Romance, Race And Slavery With Jane Austen Style |
‘Belle’: Romance, Race And Slavery With Jane Austen Style
National Public Radio
Tell Me More
2014-05-29
Michel Martin, Host
British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw was brought up on Jane Austen adaptations. “You know, the Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle was something I watched on a weekly basis with my mum at home in Oxfordshire,” she tells NPR’s Michel Martin.
But as the biracial actress completed her training at Britain’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, she watched her peers win roles in “the Downton Abbeys of this world” and realized those period dramas weren’t calling her. It made Mbatha-Raw ask: “Why can’t I be in something like this?”
Now she is. Mbatha-Raw plays the title character in Belle, a film based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman. When she is a child, Dido’s father entrusts her to his uncle, one of the most powerful men in the country.
“She goes on this massive journey to become a woman who has the courage to stand up for who she is and what she believes in,” Mbatha-Raw says…
Read the entire article here. Listen to the interview here (00:12:53). Read the transcript here. Download the audio here.
Tags: Dido Elizabeth Belle, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Michel Martin, National Public Radio