{"id":23142,"date":"2022-10-04T17:32:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T15:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1716148"},"modified":"2022-10-04T17:55:10","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T15:55:10","slug":"john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"John Boyega on how letter from The Woman King director shaped performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 04 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

John Boyega has revealed how a personal letter from The Woman King<\/a> director Gina Prince-Bythewood put him in \u201cthe right mindset\u201d to say yes to a role in the new historical epic.<\/p>\n

The former Star Wars actor plays a version of the real-life figure King Ghezo in the new film, and during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com<\/a> he talked about how Prince-Bythewood reached out directly to him before he was cast.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely different from how offers usually come,\u201d he explained. \u201cUsually it\u2019s my agent speaking while he\u2019s in Nandos. I won\u2019t quite hear what the offer is, I\u2019m like \u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something about this being just packaged, and I think the reason was [that I was] coming in late and the commitment that our ladies have towards these roles was going to be 10 times more than the supporting cast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p>The historical epic, which is released in UK cinemas today (Tuesday 4th October 2022), is\u00a0a largely fictionalised story of the Agojie, an all-female group of warriors formed to protect the Dahomey Kingdom \u2013 what is now Benin.<\/p>\n<p>Boyega continued: \u201cSo it was up to us, you know, to bring the A-game in where we kind of had our realm \u2013 which is obviously the political and the social scenes that we were involved in. So for us, it was just like coming in and being supportive for them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut getting that letter, it\u2019s like a call to action \u2013 you kind of know what mentality is required to join an already solid military unit in which they\u2019re suffering, going through the gym process and doing all of that. So it definitely put me in the right mindset and mind frame to say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Woman King is now playing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/movies\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">Film<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/tv-listings\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0to see what\u2019s on tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/radiotimes.com\/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener noopener noreferrer\" noreferrer=\"\" data-auth=\""NotApplicable"\" data-linkindex=\""0"\">subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/podcasts\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener noopener noreferrer\" noreferrer=\"\" data-auth=\""NotApplicable"\" data-linkindex=\""1"\">Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patrick Cremona Published: Tuesday, 04 October 2022 at 12:00 am John Boyega has revealed how a personal letter from The Woman King director Gina Prince-Bythewood put him in \u201cthe right mindset\u201d to say yes to a role in the new historical epic. The former Star Wars actor plays a version of the real-life figure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23143,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/john-boyega-on-how-letter-from-the-woman-king-director-shaped-performance-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"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 Patrick Cremona Published: Tuesday, 04 October 2022 at 12:00 am John Boyega has revealed how a personal letter from The Woman King director Gina Prince-Bythewood put him in \u201cthe right mindset\u201d to say yes to a role in the new historical epic. The former Star Wars actor plays a version of the real-life figure…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}