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After approximately one hour of talking with me – we are currently at a pub near his house in the London suburbs – the actor Kingsley Ben-Adir’s focus shifts to some challenging work he has ahead of him this afternoon. The 37-year-old is expected at a studio in the city, where he will record some final lines for the upcoming biopic Bob Marley: One Love, set to be released on Valentine’s Day weekend. Ben-Adir portrays Marley in the film, which is a major opportunity for him after a career of reliable supporting roles, including his most recent work in Barbie (where he played one of the less intelligent Kens), the Marvel series Secret Invasion (as an alien terrorist), and One Night in Miami (as Malcolm X). A few years ago, Ben-Adir had a brief appearance as Barack Obama in the HBO drama The Comey Rule. However, successfully imitating a Jamaican icon and capturing all of Marley’s unique charisma and the poetic beauty of his patois is “extremely difficult,” the actor admits.
The reason a casting director once hired him to portray Obama becomes clear as you observe his slender and graceful stature, coupled with an immaculate smile that radiates warmth. Dressed casually in black, the only standout piece being a pale red beanie which he playfully adjusts while speaking, he discreetly vapes in preparation for his afternoon recording session. As he runs through lines from Bob Marley’s “One Love”, Ben-Adir’s portrayal of the iconic musician becomes more and more convincing, as if he were a tennis player warming up or a singer practicing scales. Clearly, he has put in the effort to perfect his performance.
Ben-Adir describes how the filming of Barbie and Bob Marley: One Love happened in quick succession. While working on Barbie, he utilized his free time to prepare for his role in Bob Marley. Imagining the scene, there was a lot of pink scenery, a dozen Barbie actors and Kens, and a large crew. In the midst of it all, Ben-Adir could be found hunched over his laptop and wearing headphones, listening and transcribing hours of Marley’s recordings. Ben-Adir mentions a recent encounter with his Barbie co-star Ryan Gosling, who immediately mimed someone typing frantically, likely a humorous memory from their time on set together.
Ben-Adir remembers being in a manic state during that time. In hindsight, it felt like he was learning how to speak French for a role. He had to start from scratch and build his understanding of Bob’s language, including the dialect, flow, intonation, and overall feel. Jamaican patois can be deceiving – with so much of the English language embedded in it, one may assume they know it well. However, it is more complex and confusing than meets the eye.
Marley’s music is well-suited to his voice, so he was willing to sing in the movie. He felt that he did a decent job without being a natural singer, and he gives credit to his singing teacher. To better prepare for the role, Ben-Adir traveled to Kingston to spend time with Marley’s family and seek advice from his former bandmates and collaborators. When he first spoke to people in Jamaica, they were skeptical of his intentions. He understood their hesitation and reassured them that he was committed to representing Marley’s story accurately. He also emphasized his familiarity with Jamaican culture and expressed his determination to do the best job possible.
The question that was asked to Ben-Adir during his time in Jamaica – “Who are you?” – I also ask him again at the pub. There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding this man. In previous interviews, Ben-Adir has not revealed much about himself. However, today he freely discusses his wife, who he practiced his lines from Bob Marley’s “One Love” with and from whom he borrowed the pale red hat. He is cautious not to disclose her name or any personal details. A quick Google search of his name reveals speculation about his religious background due to his Jewish surname. The Jewish Chronicle recently referred to Ben-Adir as Barbie’s “Jewish Ken”, although there is no solid evidence of him ever stating this himself. As someone who comes from a half-Jewish background, I feel somewhat comfortable asking Ben-Adir if he identifies as a Jew.
Ben-Adir tactfully avoids directly answering the question, but expresses his belief that it is important for the people who care about him to feel secure. He also mentions his discomfort with actors using the media as a form of therapy. Despite having conversations with journalists with good intentions, he recognizes that details of his personal life can easily be distorted when written down. As a result, he typically asks his publicists how much promotion is necessary to avoid damaging his reputation in the industry. He admits to feeling anxious about his privacy and the idea of fame, preferring to lead a normal life by taking public transportation and biking.
What information can he provide about his background? He was raised in Kentish Town, with a mother from Trinidad who moved to the UK to work for the NHS in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His father is described as English. He attended William Ellis secondary school near Hampstead Heath. Ben-Adir maintains strong relationships with his former classmates and they often meet up to exercise and swim in one of the heath’s ponds. Reflecting on his younger years, he acknowledges that he was fortunate to have the support of many people who guided and mentored him at crucial points in his life. He has always been diligent in his work, but also recognizes the role that others have played in his success.
As a teenager, he has strong memories of watching specific movies that deeply affected him. He would become emotional and question why he was feeling such intense emotions. These reactions were often triggered by scenes or stories that showed adult men crying. Actors like Paddy Considine, Robin Williams, Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, and Viggo Mortensen inspired him to pursue acting, despite not fitting the typical leading man mold. It took some time for him to learn how to emulate their unconventional approaches to performing.
In his early 20s, he enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He did not find this to be a satisfying time. While his family and friends always called him King, he was persuaded to use “Kingsley” from his birth certificate instead while at Guildhall (according to an interview with Deadline magazine). He was trained to speak in a neater RP accent, deviating from his native north London accent, which he later had to regain confidence in to change back. After graduating, he struggled to find roles in film and television. A previous attempt at auditioning in Los Angeles was embarrassing, as he was stopped mid-reading due to his poor American accent. He was scared off and did not return until he had paid for lessons with different dialect coaches to improve his accent.
His accents and dialects are now seen as a strength rather than a weakness. While last year’s Marvel series, Secret Invasion, did not receive favorable reviews from fans or critics, it was widely agreed that Ben-Adir’s portrayal was the standout performance. He flawlessly embodied a captivating villain with a hypnotic Welsh accent, inspired by the dialect of Bluetown, a diverse community in Cardiff. In his role as Malcolm X in Regina King’s 2021 drama One Night in Miami, Ben-Adir masterfully captured the cadences and mannerisms of the civil rights activist. Despite having only two weeks to prepare for the role after another actor dropped out, he immersed himself in recordings of Malcolm X’s speeches and found a way to connect with the character through his vocal expressions. This same approach was used when preparing for his role as Marley.
Several years ago, I first saw Ben-Adir on screen in a minor but noteworthy role in the HBO series Love Life, which was produced by its lead actress, Anna Kendrick. He joined the New York-based show as one of Kendrick’s love interests, portraying a character from Kent with a unique accent that is rarely heard on screen due to its tendency to be discouraged by acting instructors. Ben-Adir is grateful that his decision to use this accent was noticed, as it reflects his self-assurance at the time.
In 2019, he experienced a resurgence after a rough period in which he was cut from the film “The Photograph” and most of the TV show “Peaky Blinders”. He regained his confidence when he landed a role in Zoë Kravitz’s “High Fidelity”. Despite the series being cancelled after one year, he felt valued and fulfilled on set, especially after a period of not working. Living in New York during filming allowed him to work and make new friends simultaneously, which was a freeing experience. When he received a call from Kendrick about “Love Life”, it was the first time he had ever been offered a role.
At the age of 30, he was starting to see his desired career come to fruition. In 2021, Ben-Adir was featured on the BBC in an interview with Mark Kermode, where he discussed his aspirations. He shared that his current ambition was to receive scripts without requesting them.
I watched a 20-minute preview of Bob Marley: One Love and while it was not long enough to fully evaluate the movie, it left me feeling excited and curious about a creative decision made by its makers. The Jamaican characters, including Ben-Adir as Marley and Lashana Lynch as Marley’s wife Rita, all speak in patois, as they would have in real life. When the movie is released in theaters, there will be no subtitles, and non-patois speakers will be carried along by the combination of English words woven into the dialogue and the captivating performances of Ben-Adir and Lynch.
Ben-Adir admits that there were concerns among some individuals involved in the film about this decision. He explains that the family’s main request was for the movie to stay true to reality, without any whitewashing. However, when reading early drafts of the script, this was not fully represented. In support of the Marleys, Ben-Adir advocated for revisions that incorporated more patois, even if it meant potentially limiting the film’s commercial success. Reflecting on it now while at a pub, he muses, “Perhaps the financial implications were not as significant to me as they were to others. I always thought, ‘How unique would it be to have a foreign language film without subtitles?’ It would give this biopic its own distinctiveness.”
Ben-Adir shares a compelling anecdote about his favorite television series, The Sopranos, which he frequently re-watches. In a particular episode, main character Tony Soprano stands on a mountaintop and shouts something unintelligible. After years of speculation, Ben-Adir finally turned on subtitles and discovered the mystery was solved (“I get it!”), but also lost the enjoyable ambiguity. This experience led him to believe that in art, one does not need to fully comprehend everything right away, but rather to simply feel it. He asserts that he could watch a movie like City of God without subtitles and still be captivated by its authenticity, as he values the essence of a scene over understanding every word spoken.
Ben-Adir is currently at a pub and is preparing to go to a nearby studio to record the last lines of the song “One Love” by Bob Marley. To warm up, he recites lines from Marley’s dialogue that he has memorized. He delivers a powerful speech about the struggles of the Black community, followed by a religious passage. Occasionally, he includes phrases from Marley’s recorded interviews that have yet to be deciphered by anyone, including Ben-Adir himself and the Marley family who he sought help from. Marley spoke in patois and English, but also had a unique language of his own. Ben-Adir hopes that these elements will be included in the final version of the biopic, as they accurately represent Marley’s life.
“If we avoid the situation,” he nonchalantly lifts his shoulders, “we ultimately harm ourselves.”
The film “One Love” by Bob Marley will premiere in theaters on February 14th.
Roz Donoghue provided the styling, while Liz Taw used Omorovicza for grooming. Sam Deaman assisted with fashion, and Alex Cornes assisted with photography. Transportation was arranged through wagonwheels.com.
Source: theguardian.com
