Interview with actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Fresh from rehearsing for the Young Vic’s forthcoming production of Pulitzer-prize winning playwright August Wilson ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’, actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith talks to Catch a Vibe about his career so far, staying versatile, why he’s such a fan of Wilson’s work and the prospect of working across the Atlantic.
Joe Turner's Come and Gone (c) Dan Burn-Forti
Catch a Vibe: How did it all start for you? Was acting something you’d wanted to do from a young age?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: I was about 15; I’d just finished my GCSE’s. I thought ‘I wonder if I could [become an actor]’. I hadn’t really suggested it to anyone. It just didn’t seem allowed. My family are really academic, my dad’s a doctor- they’re not really artistic so to speak. So there was a slow exploration of [acting] and by the time I was 18, I was resolute.
CAV: You’ve worked extensively on both the small screen and on stage. Do you have a preference for theatre, film or television?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: I’m comfortable with exploring the different possibilities: theatre, TV, and films – whatever. I tend to do straight stuff on stage and comedy on TV. I tend to sink my teeth into bigger roles in theatre so I kind of prefer that. I haven’t yet done enough stuff on film to know its challenges inside out.
CAV: Despite being relatively new to the scene your career has already shown incredible diversity; you don’t appear to be type cast in the way that certain African/Caribbean actors can be. How do you think you have managed to avoid this? Is it down to some risk taking on your part?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: I don’t know…I think one of my professional strengths and possible weaknesses is that people never recognise me from job to job. That’s generally a huge compliment. They don’t know Olunde (‘Death and the Kings Horseman’) was Jeremy Charles (‘Seize the Day’)… It’s very validating.
CAV: What kind of things do you look for in a role?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: In short, I have to want that character to be alive. Why does this character need to be alive? It has to be worth bothering. You can do a job and take their money or you can do a job and you know it’ll be good for your career… There are a number of reasons for doing a job and all of those reasons are valid. I do jobs for money, I do jobs for my career but when I care about a job I have to want that character to speak. The more I want that character to speak the more I’m willing to try and make him speak.
CAV: What was it about your role in ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ that appealed most to you?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: Herald Loomis in ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ signifies a particular kind of pain specific to the African-American as a direct result of the prevailing attitudes of the time. It’s just the most amazing character within an amazing play. He embodies the intention to persevere despite the most unjust adversity imaginable. That’s a very interesting challenge for me, very exciting and very engaging. It’s the prospect of bringing this character to life, bringing these experiences to life and the sort of parallels you can draw with the experience of the Diaspora in general. It’s an honour; it really is a pure honour. Each time I do an August Wilson play I learn more and more about how important [he is]. He’s a writer of a weight and calibre that’s easily on a par with Chekov and Shakespeare. He has the domestic and the epic of Chekov and he has the verbal might of the Bard. The weight, the profundity, the resonance of this man’s writing are not to be underestimated but unfortunately I think they are.
CAV: You seem to be as much at home doing comedy (Star Stories, Sorry I’ve Got No Head, Phoneshop) as you are in more serious roles (Death and the King’s Horseman, Seize the Day etc). Do you feel more at ease with one than the other?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: Working on stage and working on TV is slightly different and then working on comedy and working on drama is different [too]. On stage, living it with the scrutiny of people who are there- you can’t rewind, you can’t change cuts, you can’t do a take again- you have a very tight, taxing focus. On set… the thing about comedy is you have to be serious for it to work. So to crack jokes and to be inane or insane and not have the camera pick up on your lies is an equally tight focus for different reasons. I’m not a comic but I work with a lot of comedians and they are genuinely funny. In a stressful situation like a film or TV set it’s wonderful to have that comedy available. And then on stage it’s wonderful to be unearthing the deep, dark truths of these characters and situations. You go to the cinema and you can see the detail of a helicopter landing and someone’s blood and guts but in theatre it’s there, it’s present. You can’t download the theatre, it’s live.
CAV: How did you get involved in the ‘See Africa Differently’ project? [Watch the video here]
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: It was to counter the negative propaganda of what’s happening with Africa, where people’s money is going, the scale of its development and its scope for a positive future. Richard Ayoade –who plays Moss in the IT Crowd-, asked me if I would come along and do the scene I did with Michael Sheen and that was literally how it happened. We did loads of improv [but] what you see is pretty close to the script, oddly enough.
CAV: Do you believe that your generation of actor from a particular background still faces the same kind of limitations as previous generations?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: At the moment there is loads going on on-stage… You’ve got ‘Sucker Punch’ that’s coming out at the Royal Court, we’re on here [Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Young Vic],’ Eurydice’ is on here, Welcome to Thebes’ is on at the National Theatre, ‘Ruined’ is on at the Almeida… There are lots of plays with prominent black themes. Certainly on stage there’s a lot available for us to do.
But I think in terms of improvement, when people can look at us and think we’re as good or as bad as anybody else, it will be all right. When I can play a robber again without a member of the public watching that and thinking “That’s what black folk do”, that’s when thing’s will be okay. There is [still] a long way to go. In terms of casting there’s yet some ground to be gained in just thinking of people as people and not having to consider ethnicity as a problem or an obstacle. It’s a funny thing because they have to disregard and they have to consider it. If you’re casting ‘Hamlet’ and your Hamlet is black, it would make sense depending on your production to have a black dad and a black mum and not just have Hamlet in the middle being this black actor on his own. But if you do I’d understand that as well, there’s scope for the two.
By the same token if the make-up weren’t offensive, I wouldn’t have any objection to a white actor playing Othello because I don’t think it was written as a black part; in terms of [being] rooted in the culture and ethnicity, I don’t think it was.
CAV: A lot of young British actors seem to be relocating to the States to find fame and fortune and a few have succeeded on hit American TV shows and films. Is that something you would consider?
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: It’s definitely in my sights but I have a lot of things I want to do here first. It’s not something I would say no to but not yet.
