A
After an hour of chatting with me, we are at a pub near his home in the London suburbs. The actor Kingsley Ben-Adir starts thinking about the difficult work he has ahead of him this afternoon. The 37-year-old has to go to a studio in town to record some final lines for the new biopic Bob Marley: One Love, which is set to be released on Valentine’s Day weekend. Ben-Adir plays Marley in the movie, which is a big opportunity for him after years of playing supporting roles. His recent works include Barbie (where he played one of the Kens), the Marvel show Secret Invasion (where he played an alien terrorist), and One Night in Miami (where he played Malcolm X). A few years ago, Ben-Adir had a small role as Barack Obama in the HBO drama The Comey Rule. However, successfully imitating a Jamaican icon and capturing Marley’s unique magnetism and beautiful patois music is “extremely difficult,” the actor admits.
The reason a casting director once chose him to portray Obama is clear. Ben-Adir exudes the same graceful and slender presence as the former president, complete with an infectious and flawless smile that quickly appears. He is currently wearing a simple black outfit, with the only standout piece being a pale red beanie which he fiddles with while talking. He playfully vapes away from the sight of the pub staff, preparing for his afternoon recording session. As he speaks, he effortlessly recites lines from Bob Marley’s One Love, much like a tennis player warming up or a choir member practicing scales. Ben-Adir’s portrayal of Marley is eerily accurate, but it’s no surprise considering the time and effort he has put into perfecting it.
Ben-Adir describes how the filming for Barbie and Bob Marley: One Love were done almost consecutively. While working on the former, he made use of his free time to prepare for the latter. Imagine the setting: a sea of pink scenery, a group of twelve actors playing Barbie and Ken, and numerous crew members. And in the midst of it all, Ben-Adir, sitting with his laptop and headphones, carefully listening and transcribing countless hours of Marley’s recordings. Ben-Adir also mentions a recent encounter with his Barbie co-star, Ryan Gosling, who immediately imitated someone frantically typing, a scene that must have been ingrained in their memories from the set.
“I was in a manic state during that time,” remembers Ben-Adir. “In hindsight, it was like learning a role in French. I was starting from the basics in understanding Bob’s language – the dialect, the rhythm, the emphasis, the overall tone. Jamaican patois is tricky. It contains a lot of English, so you may think you understand it. However, it’s actually more perplexing and intricate than that.”
Marley’s music and voice are a perfect match, so he was willing to sing in the movie. Although he doesn’t consider himself a natural singer, he believes he did well with those parts and credits his singing teacher for helping him. To better prepare for the role, Ben-Adir traveled to Kingston to spend time with Marley’s family and seek advice from his surviving bandmates and collaborators. When he first spoke to people in Jamaica, they were cautious of him. He understood their skepticism and assured them that he was dedicated to representing Marley accurately. He also reassured them that he has grown up with Jamaicans and takes the role seriously. Despite any doubts, he was determined to give his best performance.
That question they put to Ben-Adir in Jamaica – “Who are you?’ – I end up putting to him again in the pub. More than the usual amount of mystery surrounds this guy. In the few interviews Ben-Adir has given in the past, he tends not to reveal much. Today, he chats fairly freely about his wife, with whom he practised his Bob Marley: One Love lines and from whom he pinched the pale red hat. But he is careful not to give her name or any identifying information. Google his name and you’ll likely come across a lingering question about his religious background. He has a Jewish surname. The Jewish Chronicle recently claimed Ben-Adir as Barbie’s “Jewish Ken”, though I can’t find a reliable record of him ever saying so. I inhabit a half-Jewish hinterland myself and because of this I feel (just about) comfortable asking Ben-Adir whether he identifies as a Jew.
Ben-Adir is guarded but honest when discussing his personal life. He values the safety and privacy of those who care for him and is wary of using the media as a platform for therapy. While he understands the importance of promoting his work, he also recognizes the potential for personal details to be misconstrued in written interviews. As a result, he often consults with his publicists to determine the bare minimum amount of promotion necessary to avoid damaging his reputation. Despite his fame, he remains grounded and enjoys living a normal life without the constant scrutiny of celebrity.
What information can he provide about his upbringing? He was raised in Kentish Town and his mother, who was from Trinidad and Tobago, moved to the UK to work for the NHS in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His father is English and he attended William Ellis secondary school near Hampstead Heath. Ben-Adir remains close to his friends from school and they often meet to exercise and swim in one of the ponds on the heath. He expresses gratitude for his fortunate upbringing and the guidance he received from others, which has shaped his strong work ethic.
He has strong recollections of watching specific films during his teenage years, around the age of 15 or 16, and being deeply moved to a point that frightened him. He recalls crying and questioning why he was experiencing such intense emotions. These reactions were often triggered by scenes or stories depicting grown men crying, such as Paddy Considine in In America or Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting. He is unsure why he found the sight of men crying so unsettling, but it left a lasting impact on him. He was inspired to become an actor like Considine, Williams, and other non-traditional leading men he admired, such as Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, and Viggo Mortensen. It took some time for him to discover how to embody this type of emotive, unconventional performance style himself.
In his early twenties, he enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. However, it was not a satisfying experience. While his family and friends have always called him King, he was persuaded at Guildhall to use “Kingsley” from his birth certificate instead. He was also trained to speak in a more proper RP accent, which he later had to work up the confidence to unlearn. After graduating from drama school, he struggled to find screen roles despite getting parts in plays. His initial attempt at auditioning in Los Angeles was humiliating as his American accent was not up to par. This experience led him to return home, but he eventually went back to LA after retraining under different dialect coaches at his own expense.
His accents and dialects are now considered a strength rather than a weakness. The Marvel series, Secret Invasion, which aired last year, did not receive positive reviews from fans or critics. However, it was widely agreed that Ben-Adir’s performance was the standout as he portrayed a captivating villain with a mesmerizing Welsh accent inspired by the dialect of Bluetown, a diverse community in Cardiff. In his role as Malcolm X in Regina King’s 2021 film, One Night in Miami, Ben-Adir flawlessly captured the cadences and mannerisms of the civil rights activist. He only had two weeks to prepare for the role after another actor dropped out, but he dedicated those 14 days to listening to recordings of Malcolm X nonstop in order to find his way into the character through his vocal expressions. This same method was applied when preparing for his role as Marley.
A few years ago, I first saw Ben-Adir on screen in a minor yet impressive role in HBO’s Love Life, a series created by its lead actress, Anna Kendrick. He joined the show, set in New York, as one of Kendrick’s love interests and portrayed a character from Kent, a place with a distinct accent that is rarely heard on screen due to being discouraged by acting teachers. Ben-Adir is grateful that his subtle choice was recognized, as it was a display of his self-assurance at the time.
In 2019, he remembers feeling successful after a string of failures that resulted in being cut from a film (The Photograph) and most of a TV show (Peaky Blinders). He regained his confidence when he landed a role in Zoë Kravitz’s High Fidelity. Despite the show’s short run and eventual cancellation, “I felt valued on High Fidelity, especially after not working for some time. I had a great experience living in New York and was able to work and make friends at the same time, which I believe helped me in some way.” Later, when Kendrick approached him about Love Life, it was the first time he had ever been offered a role.
In his early thirties, he was seeing his desired career come to fruition. In 2021, Ben-Adir had a conversation with Mark Kermode on the BBC, during which he was asked about his goals. Ben-Adir expressed that receiving unsolicited scripts to read was now his ambition.
I watched a 20-minute preview of the movie Bob Marley: One Love. It wasn’t enough for me to form a complete opinion, but I was intrigued and excited by the artistic decision of the creators. All of the Jamaican characters, including Ben-Adir as Marley and Lashana Lynch as Marley’s wife Rita, speak in patois, as they would have in real life. The movie will not have subtitles when it is released. Instead, non-patois speakers will still be able to follow along with the help of some English words and the vibrant performances of Ben-Adir and Lynch.
Ben-Adir acknowledges that some individuals involved with the movie have expressed concern about this decision. The family’s main request was for the movie to be completely authentic and not whitewashed. However, early scripts did not fully reflect this request. Ben-Adir, along with the Marleys, advocated for revisions that incorporated more patois, even though it could potentially limit the movie’s commercial success. Looking back on the situation, Ben-Adir reflects that perhaps financial gain is not as important to him as it is to others. His vision was to have a foreign language movie without subtitles, which would give the biopic a unique identity.
Ben-Adir shares a compelling tale about his preferred television series, The Sopranos, which he often revisits. In one particular episode, Tony Soprano stands atop a mountain and shouts something, though the exact words are unclear in the recording. It could be interpreted as either “I did it!” or “I get it!” After years of pondering, Ben-Adir recently turned on subtitles and discovered the answer was “I get it!”, but in doing so, he lost the enjoyable ambiguity. This experience led him to believe that in art, it is not necessary to have all the answers right away. Instead, it is more important to feel the essence and authenticity of a piece. He even suggests that he could watch a movie like City of God without subtitles and still be captivated by the story and emotions portrayed. Ultimately, Ben-Adir values the feeling over understanding every single word.
Before heading to the recording studio in town to record his final lines for the Bob Marley biopic, Ben-Adir warms up by reciting lines from Marley’s speeches that he knows by heart. He includes phrases from Marley’s interviews that have never been deciphered, despite Ben-Adir’s slow-motion analysis and consultations with the Marley family. Marley spoke in a mixture of patois and English, and occasionally in his own unique language. Ben-Adir hopes this aspect will be included in the final cut of the film, as it stays true to Marley’s life.
“If we avoid the situation,” he casually lifts his shoulders, “we will be at a disadvantage.”
The film “One Love” by Bob Marley will be shown in theaters starting February 14th.
Roz Donoghue provided styling while Liz Taw used Omorovicza for grooming. Sam Deaman assisted with fashion and Alex Cornes assisted with photography. Transportation was provided by wagonwheels.com.
Source: theguardian.com
