Sir Lenny Henry in conversation with award-winning film-maker Amma Asante on successful period dramas, steadfast mentors, and sharing power on the silver screen.
Lenny Henry (LH): Hi, Amma, thank you so much for agreeing to chat with me today for our brilliant new journal, Representology. We believe that leading artists like yourself have invaluable knowledge about how to make our industry more diverse and inclusive. In my mind, it is all about recording, and then circulating, that knowledge and experience to as wide an audience as possible, making sure we don’t repeat the mistakes that have happened before, and building on our successes.
Let’s try and unlock some of your success, as you are one of the most important and influential Black British directors of recent years. I first came across you on the BBC’s legendary series Grange Hill, on which you were working as a child actor.
I also remember you working as an intern on Chef [a 1990s BBC comedy-drama, starring Lenny Henry, written by Peter Tilbury]. So, was there always a plan for you to make the leap from appearing on-screen to working behind the camera? Tell us a little about your journey from being a drama school kid to being one of our most important Black British female directors.
Amma Asante (AA): There was definitely no master plan. I attended Barbara Speake [Stage School] because my dad noticed, when I was at primary school in South London, that I was really creative. But I was also quite shy. I was very outgoing at home, and in my mum and dad’s shop, which they had in Shepherds Bush, but I was not outgoing in school.
My dad was really good at looking at what each of his children was good at, and [at] trying to push us towards that. For example, my brother’s a biochemist now, and, at an early age, my dad was always buying him chemistry kits.
So, he knew of a couple of stage schools, but he wanted me to go to one that was the most multicultural, that had a percentage of Black kids. They didn’t want me to go to a place where I’d be the only Black kid there. And so I went to Barbara Speake’s. And when I got there, Kwame Kwei-Armah was there, Naomi Campbell was there and Michelle Gayle was there. But, in the beginning, I was terrified. It was all too much. It was like the kids from Fame [cast members from the 1980s American TV drama set in a stage school].
LH: Kids dancing on taxis in the street in leg-warmers and leotards, yelling “Let’s do the show right here”?
AA: Exactly! I mean, literally! I walked in and there were all these kids in leotards in the assembly hall. There were kids rehearsing what we used to call an “own show”, which was a show that the kids produced for themselves. It was a lunch break, and they were all rehearsing and doing splits in the air, and all of that. And I begged my dad for a full seven months to take me out of the school. Then, suddenly, one day I became one of those kids doing splits in the air, and you’re one of those kids who knows how to be one of the The Kids from “Fame”, and you’re talking like everybody else, and suddenly I was a bit more out of myself – not as much as everybody else – but I was one of them.
LH: So, you were finally fitting in. You’ve said in past interviews that you realised the power of drama during this time. Can you explain?
AA: Actually, I didn’t ever want to act. I did Grange Hill. I was surrounded by kids who could act, and I could see what good acting looked like. I knew I couldn’t do that. I was too self-aware. I probably lacked confidence as well. But I was blown away by Lee MacDonald, who played Zammo at the time, and he had a harrowing storyline in my final year [about childhood drug addiction]. And I was also blown away by the impact of the story on the community.
I’d go back to my own community in South London, and I could see the impact, particularly the Heroin storyline, was having with kids I went to school with previously, in my primary school, and that blew me away.
The storyline also led me, and the other Grange Hill kids, to go to the White House and meet Nancy Reagan and to appear on news channels in the US and UK.
The importance of women and diversity in positions of influence
LH: But I understand it could have all ended at that point.
AA: After Grange Hill, I effectively stopped acting when I got to around 19. I did a little bit of presenting with Lee MacDonald on the Children’s Channel. And various other things, like a bit in one episode of Desmond’s [a 1990s Channel 4 comedy set in a Black British barber shop], but mainly because I didn’t know how to do anything else.
When all my friends had gone to university, I hadn’t. My mum was terrified that my dad had sort of led me down this road, where I had not got an education, the kind of education that she wanted me to get. So, she begged me to go to hairdressing college, where I was promptly kicked out.
And then she begged me to go to secretarial college, which was the big turning point for me. I’d read an article somewhere in Cosmopolitan or Pride, or one of the women’s magazines, that said that Black women, at that time, actually did really well in particular areas of administration and particular areas of lower management, and I thought; “Oh, maybe that’s a trajectory that I can follow.” For me, that just demonstrates why all these statements and things that we read, even when we’re 15, 16, 17 years old, really go on to impact us and make a difference, one way or another, because that’s where I thought; “Okay, maybe there’s a world where I can keep a roof over my head, you know, in that way.”
And so I was trying to get my typing speed up. I would do copy typing. And then I would just type off the top of my head, and something I typed off the top of my head was a script called Soul Difference. And, in the back of my mind, I thought I was typing out a half hour sitcom, but it came out at something like two hours by the time I finished it. It was about my life at home with my parents. The mother in it was my mum. The dad was my dad. And the girl in it was me.
I’d not so long before met a producer, called Chuck Sutton, in the States. His uncle was Malcolm X’s lawyer, and his family owned the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. I gave him the script to read, and Chuck read it, and said, “This is really good”. And he set up a meeting for me at Fox. And, Lenny, let me tell you, I turned up at Fox Studios in Los Angeles in cut down jeans and a cut down t-shirt, because I was on holiday at the time.
I was in my very early twenties, and had no idea that I was turning up to a whole professional studio meeting, because I had no concept of American studios, or what those kinds of professional meetings were like.
But, as I say, I had gone to the US on holiday, and I only had holiday clothes with me. So, I go in, and I see these two executives and these two development executives, they’re both women! I just thought, “Wow!!” They were amazing. They changed my life, because they said to me: “We love what you’ve written, and you can write, and you’re really good.” And they talk to me about the characters, and they talk to me about the world I’d built in the script. And, suddenly, I was talking about creative stuff. And I felt listened to, and that somebody was actually encouraging me, or telling me “you are good, and there is a possibility that you might be better.”
So, I came back to the UK and pinpointed a producer that I wanted to send my script to, who was called Mick Pilsworth, at Chrysalis Entertainment. And Mick said to me; “Did you really write this?” And I said, “Yes, I did write it.” And he said, “Okay, well, let’s talk about what we can do”. And he then sent it to Channel Four’s Commissioning Editor, Seamus Cassidy. That’s how I got my first-seven script deal with Channel Four.
That was how it started. I stopped acting fully at that point. It dawned on me when I got into my twenties that I was only doing it because it’s something that I’d sort of been put into as a child, as opposed to choosing it. My Dad understood I needed an outlet for my creativity, but I had to figure out exactly what that outlet should be.
LH: I liken the experience to climbing a ladder up the side of a big house - you get to the roof, look across, and see another house. A bigger and better house. Then, you slap yourself on the forehead and say, “My ladder was against the wrong house! That’s the house I want over there!”
AA: Precisely, writing made me feel so good. And it made me feel like I imagined good actors feel, because when I was writing, I could express what I wanted to express. Whereas when I was acting, I couldn’t. There wasn’t any story I wanted to tell as an actor, but plenty I wanted to tell as a writer.
The qualities of a good mentor
LH: But, again, it could have all come to nothing – is that right?
AA: I went through three years of development work, and then a new commissioning editor came in, with a new broom, and everything was swept out.
I'd also got a development deal on a sitcom I created called Ladies in the House at the BBC. And I can’t actually remember if it was the Beeb or Channel 4, but one of them had given me a mentor, called Paul Mayhew-Archer, and that was a beautiful experience. He's a great guy.
He was so brilliant and clever at just getting me to express what was locked inside the characters, and what I wanted to pull out. And so, the experience was so positive, it was so brilliant. He was such a good mentor, though neither project was made.
And so, today, when I speak to students, I always say to them, that there is no wasted piece of work. There is no point in saying, “Well, this didn't get made, or this didn't get done,” or saying “I wasted three years on that”, because I couldn't have made Belle, I couldn't have made any of the films I've made without going through all the processes that I went through in those early stages. I just couldn't have done them. I couldn't have simply arrived fully baked.
LH: Mentoring is really important. I think what you said about Paul Mayhew-Archer really resonates with me. Often people get the whole mentor/mentee relationship wrong. It shouldn’t just be about having someone who can help you make things better. You also need to be able to allow your mentee to make mistakes. And then let them figure it out for themselves. A mentor's job isn't to come in to save you, or to move you out of the way and say: “Let me rewrite that for you,” or ”Let me redesign that piece of complex machinery for you.” A mentor should be saying: “Okay, what do ‘you’ think you should do?”
AA: Absolutely. Absolutely! The same is true for all the best producers I've had over the years. For my first film, for instance, my producer, Peter Edwards, the Head of ITV Wales, wasn't officially my mentor, but he sort of was, because he would do it. He would ask questions. All his notes were questions.
I would get on the train back from Wales. And I’d spend two hours with maybe one question spinning around in my head. Like, one of these questions would spin around, spin around, spin around, and I'd wake up the next morning, and something would just click, and then I'd go back and I would do a whole new draft. And it would just get better and better, based on these conversations that we'd have about life.
They'd be about his family, they'd be about my family, they'd be about, you know, “where does an African family overlap with a white Welsh family?” say. You know, and, all of those conversations about the ‘specific’ and the ‘universal’ and how the ‘detail’ is what makes a story that resonate. That’s what allowed me to create the film A Way of Life.
Do not pigeonhole black talent
LH: A Way of Life (written and directed by Amma Asante, 2004) went on to win a BAFTA. And it was extraordinary, because I’m pretty sure it wasn't what people were expecting from you - something so dark and complex.
AA: I really wanted to escape the prescription of what people thought you should make, as a Black person.
LH: But it seems to me that the projects you undertake are always stories from a unique perspective. And I'm fascinated by that.
AA: With A Way of Life, I wanted to go down the road where I could express an experience that I recognise, but I wanted to tell it from the point of view of the people who put me through that experience – to be the observer and, yes, even the commentator, if you like.
So, growing up in South London, where we were harangued as one of only two black families on the street. You know, my Virgo brain was like; “What makes people do that, what is the reasoning behind it?”
And my brain was growing up, gaining a perspective, and was becoming more buried in writing, which meant I was becoming more buried in research, which meant I was becoming more buried in politics, and I was becoming more buried in how societies are built, and how societal symptoms sometimes manifest.… not to say that racism is only a symptom but, in the context of the world I had grown up in, racism was partly a symptom.
And, therefore, I wondered what -- could -- be some of the causes? And, as human beings, where does the responsibility of the individual stop and the responsibility of the state and society begin, and vice versa.
A Way of Life was actually dealing more with poverty and exclusion, and specifically the underclass, than anything else. Everyone in it is trying to survive. That popular saying; “Stop and smell the roses”, when I was researching the film, I was, like, “Man, how is a person who doesn’t even know where the next bottle of milk is coming from to feed her baby, supposed to be expected to stop and smell the roses? In certain situations, that’s like a privilege, beyond anything you could possibly imagine.
You know, when I was growing up, people who had roses in their gardens were rich. To this day, my mother-in-law has roses in her garden. And she's not rich at all. But I still think of it as such a kind of decadent luxury. I've got roses in my house right now, and I always think of them as a luxury, they’re a big deal for me. And so, I started to read up and I learned that if you have an [coin or key fed] electricity meter in your home, you pay more per unit of electricity than if you just pay a quarterly bill – at least that was the case when I was making the film.
LH: So, you wanted to write about systemic poverty. The things that keep people poor. The inability of some people to escape a life like that. It’s a generational issue as much as anything else.
When I first met you, you were quite young, and my initial impression was that you were so serious. I was like, “That Amma, man, she's carrying the world on her shoulders, she's got to get these ideas out there, otherwise she would explode!”
AA: I did feel like that, because society keeps certain worlds that once functioned marginalised, right? You take away everything that allowed them to function. You take away work, you take away the libraries, you take away once decent schools - because everybody who supported them has moved out. You cut them off, and then, when immigrants, like my parents and yours, move in, and children of immigrants like us – we get the blame for what society’s, structures and governments have taken from those communities.
And then, because you've got no education, you've got multi-generational poverty, you're talking about worlds where kids don't even remember their parents working, sometimes, if unemployment is also multi-generational. Then you've got grandparents who lived next door, who remember a time when these environments were functioning and where these were once working communities that made sense, right? And now they don't make any sense anymore.
And my producer, Peter Edwards, and I, would talk about whether we’re the children of immigrants, or not, in communities like the one in A Way of Life, we are talking about parents and children who are now living in non-functioning communities.
The difficulty of building on success as a black woman
LH: What you are describing is a hybrid between class and systemic racism. A Way of Life won multiple awards. You won the Alfred Dunhill UK Film Talent award, the Carl Foreman Award, The Times Breakthrough Artist of the Year. It was extraordinary, the amount of attention your first film brought you. And, I presume, all these accolades gave you a platform that would lead to your second film, Belle.
AA: Well, you know what, Lenny, in many ways it did, but in other ways it was very, very tough. All the fuss went away, after the Southbank Show awards, and the BAFTA Awards and the FIPRESCI Awards around the world - there was all of that for about a year. And then, after that settled down, and I went and started writing what became my fourth film, and I started banging on those doors, and they were like concrete, they didn't move.
Nothing was happening at all. I didn't expect it all to sort of fall in my lap. But I just expected to get my foot in the door, so I could sit and have conversations, and talk to people about what I'd like to do next, and that just wasn't happening.
LH: So why? Why do you think that had happened?
I think that there was just a sense that I was a one hit wonder. I was an anomaly. I didn't look like directors were supposed to look, I was both female and black. You have to remember there was no Steve McQueen directing movies when I won my first BAFTA, there was wonderful Ngozi [Onwurah], the first Black British woman to have a feature film made. There were the two of us, and I didn’t know of anyone else at that particular point.
LH: In America, in the 90s, it seemed as though the film industry was overrun by all these independent films by black filmmakers. Like Julie Dash and Matty Rich and Darnell Martin and Leslie Harris. But you're right, I think what happened with those filmmakers - apart from Spike Lee, of course - is that a lot of them made one film that managed to make some money. And then, once the initial fanfare about ‘new and exciting Black filmmakers’ was over, it was very difficult for them to carve out any kind of career, or even get a second film financed.
AA: It is hard, it is very hard, it is also hard for some white guys, who drop away before the sophomore movie. But once you put Black and female, once you put in that intersection, it was an absolute no-no. And, where we're at today, there is at least some recognition of that, that tragedy and horror, and there is some acceptance by the gatekeepers that that's what they did. And nobody cared, nobody gave a damn that there were large elements of British talent that were falling by the wayside.
So [after my first film], I did get some work from America. Universal actually developed something with me, and Robert Jones who’d left the UK Film Council, who was a British producer, he developed something with me. And then, around 2008, we hit a financial crash in the UK. And lots and lots of production companies went down the drain, both in America and the UK. And, at that particular point, I sort of thought: “O.K., that's the end.”
All three of my projects just crashed. And one of them had been announced at Cannes; we were going to make Where Hands Touch - loads of noise, some of the trades ran it. And that crashed, and it was tough, you know, because I hadn't sort of been through that process before. Now, I've been through it a million times.
But, at that time, I hadn't been through it before. And I just thought, it's time to go now. I've really tried hard. I've really done my best. There's nothing I can do. And so, I was all ready to bow out and go back to secretarial school again. And then Damian Jones came to me with a picture postcard, in 2009, of the painting that became what I adapted into Belle.
Damian had tried to make it elsewhere, as a TV film, and it hadn't worked. And the Film Council said, you know, “Go to Amma and see what she makes of it. She's obsessed with the period and she's obsessed with gender.” I’d previously tried to make something set around the same period, and the BFI had rejected it. It was around gender, it was a very feminist piece. And so they said, you know, “if Amma says yes, we might make this,” and they did - they stuck to their promise. And so the process of making and developing it was not difficult.
LH: Was it already written? Did you have to write it solo?
AA: I had to write the film we made – 18 drafts. But what happened was that the person who had worked with the producer to try to get a version off the ground with HBO was able to take me to her guild in America, and got the full writing credit for everything I did. I did talk about it in the press, and for a long time, the experience was extremely painful. It stopped me from being able to write for a period, because every time I put pen to paper, the stress of it was terrible. I lost my hair. It was really awful. But I got to a place, I would say in the last 24 months, where I realised it really doesn't matter. Because all of the body of work that I'm creating, when I'm gone, anybody who looks at the work will know what is Amma, and what that means. Everybody that needs to, knows what my voice sounds like, what it feels like, what it makes them feel like, or not.
Black characters in period dramas
LH: I’m so glad you mentioned Belle - I got so much from that movie. And I have to ask, and I ask with great respect and a little trepidation: Did you enjoy Bridgerton? Ahhhh man! I’m telling you, I’m betting the producers of that show must have watched Belle nine hundred times and said, “We should do sump’n like what Amma did! But there’s gotta be more black folks in it!” What I really want to know is, if you were doing Belle now, would you cast more black performers in it?
AA: Oh, well, first of all, Shonda Rhimes [the executive producer of Bridgerton] is brilliant. When Belle came out, she put a tweet out saying, “Run, don't walk to the movie theatre to see Belle.” Which was really lovely.
LH: You obviously planted a seed in her head.
AA: And, I'm proud of that. And we [Asante and Rhimes] did something a few weeks ago with Gloria Steinem’s Women’s Media Centre, which is an organisation based in New York, and sort of does a similar thing to what you guys are doing, but its focus is specifically on women. It's a brilliant organisation, and she [Shonda Rhimes] was very complimentary, and really lovely.
But Belle’s story was quite different to Bridgerton - Belle was clearly isolated in her world, and it was a story of isolation that I wanted to tell. How you find identity and self in a world where you are wealthy, and in a world that keeps you away from other people that look like you. How to find a sense of self without community, because we are not all lucky enough to grow up in one where our race is reflected.
But Belle does find and embrace her identity – and that is her triumph. I'm doing something at the moment with Tiffany Haddish, which I’m loving, set in an earlier period, the 16th century, a Tudor world. In terms of the character whose story I’m telling, she’s a real-life character, and her story has a number of Black people in it.
LH: When you make decisions about your projects, do you see these as bold moves in advancing diversity and representation? Because it takes a brave person to take on all these right-wing historians who have done such a good job of erasing Black people from the historical narrative. Where do you see your place in all of this?
AA: Black people have lived and thrived and struggled in Britain for centuries. Read David Olusoga, read Peter Fryer’s Staying Power. Y’know Lenny, I have got to a place where I understand that unless I acknowledge certain of my achievements, even though I've had lots of awards, and some critical acclaim, as well as negative criticism too, then perhaps no one else will.
After Belle, the BBC could no longer make their quintessential period films and TV dramas and not include a Black person somewhere. It was embarrassing for them to think that they could do that, and ITV now has stuff in development all over the place. Period pieces now have Black people all over them. And everybody wants to do the movie, or the TV show, about Queen Victoria’s adopted daughter, you know, from Nigeria. All these stories existed prior to Belle, but now they have a chance to be made.
LH: Belle opened the door for other projects to be considered.
Precisely, it opened the door, both in the US and in the UK. Belle did better in the US, actually. It helped change the conversation.
The struggle for black women’s leadership to be accepted
LH: Talking about the US, people often talk about Black actors escaping to America to further their careers. I wanted to ask you about your experiences as a Black person behind the camera over there. Is it different for a person of colour working in the US versus working in the UK? And what lessons can each side of the Atlantic learn from the other? What's your experience?
AA: I mean, I think in terms of the executives, the producers, I feel like I'm treated in the same way as the white guys are treated in the US to be really honest with you. But I think, in terms of crews in America and in the UK, they are very similar, and there is still a sense of, “Oh, my God, we've never quite been led by someone who looks like this before”.
So, I still think that there's a lot of work to be done, in terms of crews. The director has to know what they're doing, and the crew has to know that you know what you're doing - you have to really quickly show that you have a vision.
But if you're Black and you're female, you don't have the option of being able to go on set and try the camera here, or try the camera there. I'm not a director who can be thinking on my feet, I've got to have everything planned out. And I've got to know everything. And any thinking I'm doing has to be done so privately, and so quietly, between me and my DP, because, otherwise, it takes a long time to earn that trust, and you lose it very fast.
LH: Yeah, they smell blood. They smell blood in the water, and you are done for.
AA: Oh, my God. Yeah, absolutely. That is a reality. Whereas, with the sorts of producers and managers, there is an understanding of your vision, they picked you for you. They thought about it long and hard before they brought you on board, whereas crews don't necessarily know that, and they've not necessarily watched a single one of my films.
LH: For the US, this is an interesting moment, isn't it? Because the streamers have taken prominence. Amazon's recent announcement that it's about to buy MGM studios is a massive play - a massive move on its part.
I wanted to ask you about the differences between TV and film. Do you think the rise of the streamers, and their inevitable dominance, will affect diversity in terms of how programmes get funded and produced now?
There just seems to be so many options for creative talent out there – many more interested buyers for a variety of not-so-mainstream products. Just look at The Underground Railroad [miniseries created and directed by Barry Jenkins]. This is an example of a very auteurist approach to longform broadcasting that would never have been produced if it had been pitched as a movie.
Streamers don’t just want a sure thing - they’re investing across a spectrum of subject matter from dark to light. And they, at the moment anyway, seem very keen on investing in diverse talent. Is that the direction in which you're heading now? Will that be the next thing?
AA: So, it was announced a few months ago that I'd be doing something similar - a very different kind of show, but sort of directing all eight episodes. And, you know, what was the first thing I did? I picked up the phone and called Barry Jenkins [the Black director of The Underground Railroad] and said: “Barry, tell me what was great about the experience. Tell me what was horrendous about the experience, and tell me what you would do differently.”
And, I got massive goosebumps, because I realised 15 years ago [that] I couldn't do that. Who could I pick up the phone to? Who was the Black artist that I could pick up the phone to, and say, “what was your specific experience of doing this very specific thing?” And ask exactly what I should watch out for, and ask, “how can you help me navigate some of the potholes that you found?”
And he was so open and he was so brilliant.
Give us a chance to fail
LH: It is amazing that we all now have fellow Black peers, who we can call on for support and advice, but it is still tough. And for me, one of the things we are fighting for is the ability to fail, and to learn from our mistakes. You know, artists such as Steve Martin made a few clunkers before he found his feet in film and television, as did Robin Williams. Nobody ever said to Robin Williams, “Oh, you're only allowed one try and that’s it. If it’s a dog’s breakfast, you don’t get to make any more films.”
AA: I completely agree. As a Black person you go to creative prison if you ever make a bad movie. And I sort of noticed that. I was getting a lot of really terrible reviews for one of my movies, I think it only got like 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, when my average is about 80 or so. And, I sort of felt very isolated, and very alone, and I started looking at my white male peers, realising there have been loads of movies where they've got that 42%. But you know what reviewers do? They sort of ignore the bad movies [by White peers]. They move on. And those filmmakers are … are making another movie within 18 or 24 months, and that becomes their next Oscar tipped movie.
LH: There's leeway for a certain kind of creative that just isn't there for people of colour, or women, or non-binary people.
AA: You learn from your mistakes, and you also learn by continually working. You know, the average for a woman between the first and the second film has been 10 years. It was very normal for a 10 year gap. And that's what it was for me - it was 10 years. But if you look at the amount of movies that my white male counterparts are making over those ten years - actually, even maybe a Black male director, in that time - what they're doing is they're honing their skills, they're getting better.
One of the reasons why I decided to do high production value television in the US, was that it meant that while I was getting my films financed, I was able to stay behind the camera and continue to work with great talent, continue to work with great DPs, and continue to hone my skills. Because, otherwise, when my movies come out nobody says; “Oh, she hasn't made a movie for five years or 10 years.“ They are comparing me to people who are making movies every 24 months or 48 months, and slating you if they feel that your movies don't come up to scratch.
The need for ring-fenced funds for diversity
LH: I think one of the things that keeps creatives of colour, and producers and directors of colour, down is that we are so critically judged - and you only get one shot. And if you mess it up, that's it and it's gonna take you a long, long time to get back into anybody's good graces. It's one of the reasons why Marcus Ryder and I, in 2015, called for the UK broadcasters to ring-fence funds for diversity and, in 2019, to argue for tax breaks for diverse films. And we wondered - I wondered - if you had any views on either of these things?
AA: I do, because, if you remember, Peter Edwards, who I mentioned earlier, who was Head of Drama at ITV Wales, how I met him was at BAFTA, and I was introduced to him, and I thought, “Oh, God, I had better say something clever”. And I thought, “What can I say?” And I said to him, “you know, Wales has some of the oldest black communities in Europe? What are you doing on ITV Wales to reflect that?” And he sort of looked at me, and said, “Yeah, I'll see you another time”. And more or less walked off. And then, six weeks later, he rang me and said,” Are you the woman that I met at BAFTA?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “I've been looking for you for six weeks, and want to have a conversation with you about the question you asked me, because I've been thinking about it.” And when I went to meet him, we talked, and he said, “I'm going to ring-fence money for you. To tell the story you want to tell.” And I said, “What story?” He said, “we can talk about that, but what I'm saying to you is, I'm going to ring-fence money for you. And what I'm saying to you is I'm guaranteeing to you that I will find something for you, and I will keep that money from my budget this year, to do it for you, because what you speak about is important.”
And that's how A Way of Life came about. That's the movie that got me the BAFTA. That's the movie that essentially launched my career as a director, because he ring-fenced that money for me. We obviously got other money in the end, on top of it, but that first amount of money made a difference. So, whoever it is, that is ring-fencing money specifically for Black talent, they are saying, I'm investing in the talent, not just the project.
LH: When Marcus Ryder and I were talking about ring-fencing money, in many ways, we saw this current correlation between the nations and the regions, and promoting under-represented groups and comparing them, saying; “You've given this money to nations - you should think in terms of communities too, and ring-fence money for them too. We’re here, and we pay our licence fee.” And our opinion was that those in charge were not looking at these under-represented groups in the same way. And, in the end, if you don't ring-fence money, those eyeballs will turn over and seek stories and imagery telling their stories via people like them.
AA: Yes, they can now. They can go elsewhere, you know. 20 years ago, they couldn't, but now they can, as the streamers are looking to offer us what we want. If they're offering us the stories and the product that we want, that's where we will go, and the BBC will be left dead in the water if it doesn’t catch up.
A power share, not a power grab
LH: OK, here's my final question. If there was one thing you could get broadcasters, streamers and studios to do to increase diversity, what would that be?
AA: I think it's more a psychological thing, more than anything. I want them to recognise that, in order to truly make a difference, they must understand that power has to be shared. I think the fear of sharing power means that there's a lot of lip service. And, they still struggle for the changes that are being made in order to be really meaningful, because people are still trying to hold on to power.
And I think it's the recognition that power has to be shared. I don't want to sound like a greetings card, but I do believe that power is a bit like love and there's enough to go around. And just because you have a powerful Black commissioning editor whose choices are honoured, it doesn't mean you're less powerful. It just means that, rather than losing power, you are facilitating the unblocking of the arteries of our industry. And that means you have to really look in the mirror.
LH: Thank you Amma, this has been wonderful - it was a pleasure to speak to you.
My takeaway from this is your story about A Way of Life where the producer at ITV Wales, Peter Edwards, came to you and said, “We're going to ring-fence some money so that you can tell your story”. That needs to happen on a global scale because if they don't do this simple thing - put money aside for marginalised groups for them to tell their own stories - nothing will change. Because nothing happens without investment.
Room for everyone’s story
AA: The final thing I want to say is that, you know, I grew up with Scorsese and Spielberg, and mostly [it was] these American directors’ work that inspired me beyond belief. And I got an Empire Award a few years ago. And, part of my speech was talking about all of these men - these white, very traditional men, whose work inspired me. But I also talked about the fact that so did Barbra Streisand - when Barbra Streisand did Yentl, I didn't realise how much her story behind that film and in front of the camera really inspired me. I know now, because I'm also obsessed with the film. But in my speech, I talked about how many more women I could have put on my list of directors who inspired me, if more women had been given the opportunities that those great men, whose work I love so much, had been given.
I don't want a world where there's no Scorsese, I don't want a world where there's no Spielberg, I believe that there was a Belle because there was a Colour Purple [directed by Steven Spielberg]. I believe that, because of him [Spielberg] – being deemed to be a safe pair of hands - to walk audiences in the shoes of a Black woman, in The Colour Purple, white audiences realised that they’d actually be fine by the end of it. You know, if you walk two hours in the shoes of a Black woman - of Whoopi Goldberg – you’ll be okay, just fine. You can actually come out quite elated and fulfilled by it, like a thousand other films, with the quintessential male protagonist at the centre.
LH: You're that person now?
AA: Yes, exactly. And so what I want is for them [inspirational White directors] to exist, but I want to exist alongside them. And I want you, and everybody else, to be able to go to the cinema and go, “Oh, there's a number of films” – maybe one is by me and one is by a white male director. – “Oh, they're both about Black women, which one am I going to go and see?” and go and see both. And that's fine. For me, that's absolutely fine. But don't tell my story, and not allow me to tell it too.
Amma Asante is a BAFTA award-winning filmmaker, directing “A Way of Life” in 2004, “Belle” in 2013, “A United Kingdom” in 2016, and “Where Hands Touch” in 2018. This is a transcript of a conversation which took place over Zoom on 8th June 2021, produced and edited by Marcus Ryder.