Lashana Lynch would have turned down her role in 'Bob Marley: One Love' if the Jamaican accents were "watered down".
The 36-year-old actress stars as the wife of the late music reggae legend in the new biopic but explained that in order to portray the "special time" and place that the story is set in, all of the cast had to be allowed to be "authentic" with the way they spoke on screen.
She told Collider: "There's no other way to tell this story outside of being as authentic as possible to every inch of who Bob is right now, what he was, what he represents. Jamaica, especially Jamaica in the ‘70s, it's just a special time, and a really important time in my culture's history. So to have accents that were watered down, I mean, that's one thing that I wouldn't have signed up for at all. I'm of Jamaican heritage and it would have been against everything that I believed in if we just had a quote-unquote understandable Jamaican accent.
"I just think that's wrong in every way. And I think it's important for audiences to lean in with understanding narratives, understanding cultures and accents. It's important, and it really doesn't underestimate what audiences do. We shouldn't be spoon-feeding them in any way, and the accents being as true as they can be was one way of doing it."
The ' No Time to Die' star was also asked about her previous roles and what she would recommend to anyone who hasn't seen her work before and named 2022 film 'The Woman King' because of the range of emotions she displayed on the project.
She said: " I think I would go for 'The Woman King' because I got to do strong and vulnerable at the same time in that movie, which I think is hard to do, and I found it very hard to do. I did my own stunts entirely for the first time — probably the last time [laughs] — and it was wonderful. I just love the character and I love Gina [Prince-Bythewood], and just the whole experience was life-changing for me."
The 36-year-old actress stars as the wife of the late music reggae legend in the new biopic but explained that in order to portray the "special time" and place that the story is set in, all of the cast had to be allowed to be "authentic" with the way they spoke on screen.
She told Collider: "There's no other way to tell this story outside of being as authentic as possible to every inch of who Bob is right now, what he was, what he represents. Jamaica, especially Jamaica in the ‘70s, it's just a special time, and a really important time in my culture's history. So to have accents that were watered down, I mean, that's one thing that I wouldn't have signed up for at all. I'm of Jamaican heritage and it would have been against everything that I believed in if we just had a quote-unquote understandable Jamaican accent.
"I just think that's wrong in every way. And I think it's important for audiences to lean in with understanding narratives, understanding cultures and accents. It's important, and it really doesn't underestimate what audiences do. We shouldn't be spoon-feeding them in any way, and the accents being as true as they can be was one way of doing it."
The ' No Time to Die' star was also asked about her previous roles and what she would recommend to anyone who hasn't seen her work before and named 2022 film 'The Woman King' because of the range of emotions she displayed on the project.
She said: " I think I would go for 'The Woman King' because I got to do strong and vulnerable at the same time in that movie, which I think is hard to do, and I found it very hard to do. I did my own stunts entirely for the first time — probably the last time [laughs] — and it was wonderful. I just love the character and I love Gina [Prince-Bythewood], and just the whole experience was life-changing for me."