Before Gugu Mbatha-Raw turned to acting, she danced. \u201cI took ballet very seriously,\u201d she recalls. \u201cDancing was definitely my way into the performing arts. And then, at 15, I failed the semi-professional exam. It was a bit of a shock for me because I\u2019d never failed anything before. But it made me reassess and, in hindsight, I\u2019m grateful because it led me to acting.\u201d<\/p>\n
A self-proclaimed \u201chigh achiever\u201d, Mbatha-Raw was head girl at her state comprehensive, where she attended drama clubs and was a straight-A student. She was brought up in a small market town near Oxford as an only child by her mother, a nurse, after her parents divorced when she was three years old. Her father was a South African doctor who fled his home country after opposing apartheid.<\/p>\n
She won a full scholarship to Rada straight out of school, where her contemporaries included her Loki<\/a> co-star Tom Hiddleston, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Ben Whishaw. \u201cThe journey of life is interesting,\u201d she reflects on her years there. \u201cSome people are not doing it anymore, some people are doing it and having intermittent success, and some people are megastars. And it\u2019s not always the people you think\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Mbatha-Raw is now 39 and definitely falls into the megastar category. She landed her breakout role in Amma Asante\u2019s period drama Belle in 2013, for which she won several awards, including best actress at the British Independent Film Awards. She now spends a lot of time in Los Angeles, which has proved handy for when she\u2019s cast in films such as Ava DuVernay\u2019s A Wrinkle in Time or TV dramas like Apple TV+\u2019s The Morning Show<\/a>.<\/p>\n She was seen last December in the BBC1 series The Girl Before<\/a> and, having just finished work on Lift, an art heist movie in which she co-stars with Kevin Hart, will soon be returning to London to film the second season of Loki. She barely has time to watch her own shows, while people still often stop her to talk about her heart-warming appearance in San Junipero, one of Black Mirror<\/a>\u2019s best-loved episodes.<\/p>\n When we meet virtually, Mbatha-Raw is in a New York hotel suite with the net curtains firmly drawn behind her (I know she has an incredible view across Central Park because she posted it on Instagram) and is sitting very straight. She\u2019s notoriously private and self-contained, but she will speak up about gender disparity in film and television if necessary and chooses, where possible, to work alongside other women.<\/p>\n That is what drew her to her latest project, Apple TV+\u2019s new eight-part psychological thriller Surface<\/a>. \u201cI was intrigued as soon as I saw the name of Reese Witherspoon\u2019s production company, Hello Sunshine, on the front of the script. I worked with Reese on The Morning Show and I know her ethos is all about empowering women. She\u2019s an actor, producer, business owner and all-round superhero.<\/p>\n \u201cThe quality of the writing was amazing and every episode is a roller-coaster, packed with twists and turns. So I came on board as executive producer and we pitched to Apple. I haven\u2019t taken on that role before, but it gives you authorship of a project and I just grew into it as we went along.\u201d<\/p>\n In the drama, she plays Sophie, an English woman married to a rich venture capitalist (played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and living in San Francisco, who we meet four months after she jumped \u2013 or was pushed \u2013 off a ship, suffered a head injury and developed amnesia. Sophie has no idea if she can trust her husband, her friends or even herself.<\/p>\n In preparation for the role, Mbatha-Raw learned how to dive, ride a horse and run up San Francisco\u2019s steep hills (Surface was mostly filmed in Vancouver, although filming moved to San Francisco so they could get shots of the city\u2019s famous streetscapes). She also had to understand more about the condition of amnesia. Surface creator and writer Veronica West brought a memory expert on board who explained how Sophie might experience flashbacks, and Mbatha-Raw had to imagine what it would be like not to know your own secrets.<\/p>\n \u201cMemory loss can be terrifying and Sophie has to rely on other people telling her who she is. But the weight is heavier on the person who does remember \u2013 in this case Sophie\u2019s husband. I\u2019ve seen stories about memory in films like The Bourne Identity, but never with somebody who looks like me at their centre.\u201d<\/p>\n We discuss the fact that Surface is shot by two female cinematographers, which is almost unheard of. \u201cIt was certainly a new \u2013 and very welcome \u2013 experience. Film and TV sets are still vastly male-dominated, certainly behind the camera. It\u2019s not a fifty-fifty split by any stretch of the imagination. Having said that, a lot of female directors were unavailable for Surface because they were too busy! But we got to work with Sam Miller, who co-directed I May Destroy You<\/a> with Michaela Coel and who is an incredible champion of women.\u201d<\/p>\n Mbatha-Raw uses her platform to align herself with movements like Time\u2019s Up and #OscarsSoWhite. Since her father vocally opposed apartheid, is politics in her blood? \u201cIsn\u2019t it in everyone\u2019s blood to a degree? It just made sense to me to speak about those issues since they affect so many of us. I often think of the Desmond Tutu quote, \u2018If you are neutral in times of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She is clearly keen on quotes since there\u2019s another on her Instagram bio \u2013 Polonius\u2019s line in Hamlet, \u201cTo thine own self be true\u201d. Mbatha-Raw laughs. \u201cI played Ophelia opposite Jude Law in a 2009 production of Hamlet and it set my life ablaze. It\u2019s the role that brought me to America. It\u2019s the quote I always come back to. There are so many voices in this industry that you have to stay true to your instincts and check in with yourself. It helps ground me and centre me.\u201d The first three episodes of Surface are streaming on Apple TV+<\/a> now, with further episodes being released weekly \u2013 you can sign up now for Apple TV+<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out more of our Drama<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0to see what\u2019s on tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a> with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Amy Raphael Published: Friday, 29 July 2022 at 12:00 am This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Before Gugu Mbatha-Raw turned to acting, she danced. \u201cI took ballet very seriously,\u201d she recalls. \u201cDancing was definitely my way into the performing arts. And then, at 15, I failed the semi-professional exam. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":19468,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller.jpg",1437,958,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller.jpg",1437,958,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/07\/surface-star-gugu-mbatha-raw-on-roller-coaster-role-in-apple-tv-thriller.jpg",1437,958,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Amy Raphael Published: Friday, 29 July 2022 at 12:00 am This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Before Gugu Mbatha-Raw turned to acting, she danced. \u201cI took ballet very seriously,\u201d she recalls. \u201cDancing was definitely my way into the performing arts. And then, at 15, I failed the semi-professional exam. 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