Gina Prince-Bythewood: When Thuso first auditioned for “The Woman King,” I thought, “This is Nawi” [one of the film’s leads, a warrior in training], but there were still other people she had to meet with, so I said, “Good luck with your career.” We laugh about it now, but to her that sounded like a death knell. Once we were on set, my admiration for her only grew. You see her going toe-to-toe with Viola [Davis] and Lashana Lynch. Plus I could give her harder and harder fight elements — she’s someone who has the desire to be great and who puts the work in until she is. In the big Oyo battle, her character has this sequence with a machete tied to a rope that I didn’t know how we were going to do without a stunt double. Well, Thuso learned it. She took that rope everywhere with her.
We filmed in South Africa, her home country, and it was important for her to go back to her school to allow these young women to see what’s possible. That same impulse is a big part of who I am. When you get into this position, there’s nothing special about being the only one in the room — it’s partly on us to hold the door open and pull others through.
One thing I tell young filmmakers is that your first film should speak to who you are. When I got out of school, I tried to write a script that mirrored what was being made at the time, but there was this other story in my head, a personal one about a little Black girl who wanted to be the first woman in the N.B.A. That was the one only I could tell.
Thuso Mbedu: “Love & Basketball” (2000) is a rite-of-passage movie. Whenever I posted about “The Woman King,” I made it clear that it had the same director — and the comments that would come back! A lot of friends went on about how it spoke to them as teenagers who were brilliant at their sport and didn’t conform to commonly held ideas about femininity. I was average in sports, so when I got the role of Nawi, I put myself in Muay Thai. Gina joined me in my sessions, so we bonded before we even got to set, and we still train together now. She’s an athlete, so she’s got that competitive edge, and I just say, “Yeah, Gina, you win.”
Before working with her, I’d only ever done TV series, so she helped me understand a new space — with a film, you’re shooting fewer scenes but spending more time on them, and you can deplete yourself emotionally very quickly if you’re not smart about it. She’s also helped me navigate the industry, reminding me to know my worth because we’re in a system that will undermine you if you don’t.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
Hair: Sharif Poston. Makeup: Rebekah Aladdin
