Following the UrbanWorld Film Festival premiere of Queen of Katwe at Times Squares AMC Empire theater Thursday evening, director Mira Nair and Golden Globe nominee & star of the film David Oyelowo sat for a little Q&A where they discussed the remarkable true story of a little girl Phiona (played by acting newcomer, Madina Nalwanga) whose talent for Chess would unbeknownst to her bring honor to her, her family and the people of Katwe; not to mention, the delicacy and etiquette required in order to produce such a story.
David Oyelowo (who plays Chess coach, Robert Katende)
As a Nigerian man, explain learning the Ugandan accent?
This is the second film that I’ve done in Uganda; I did the King of Scotland as well, over ten years ago. But this was obviously far more immersive. One of the things I’m very keen on in this film is sometimes unfortunately in the West, Africa can be thought of as a country as oppose to a continent. It is a continent with several countries that are very specific, and several regions within countries that are very specific. And so, as someone who is proud of that fact as an African, I knew that my job, Lupita knew it was her job was to go into Uganda and be very specific about Katwe, Uganda. Thankfully, I had the wonderful person of Robert Katende himself who I play in the film who was with us everyday as our Chess consultant on the film. I had him there to really focus on, and I had an amazing Ugandian dialect coach as well. But getting it right was very, very important to me, and to us.
What did you learn about yourself from working on this particular project with these children, especially?
Well I have four children, myself. I am a very proud father. In many ways, when I read the script, the person who was in my mind was my daughter Zoe, my four year old. My wife and I have three sons, and a daughter as well. So I often say that I did this as a love letter to her, because I’m one of three sons as well (with his father in the audience). So my dad had three sons, I had three sons, and then a girl – and this did something to my heart in a very big way. So when I read this story, I had my daughter in my mind, and the fact that I just couldn’t imagine a world where anyone would marginalize my daughter on the basis of her gender. I couldn’t imagine anyone or anything preventing her from scaling the heights that were possible for her.
So in being in Katwe with these kids who are from that place, living under tough conditions but they are so brilliant with talent and joy. There was very little acting required really. There was so much life on that set, largely captivated by Mira.
How much did you know about Phiona’s story, had you heard of it beforehand?
No, I hadn’t heard anything of Phiona’s story, and in many ways, that’s what I love about the film because so often, as a black actor, when you get to do these true stories, they tend to always have to be all things to all man to their salvation. You know these big stories, leaders – I’ve played a few of them. What was wonderful about this was that she was an ordinary girl, in an unassuming place on the continent of Africa. A girl who a young girl in New York could relate to because it was on the basis of she had a dream, she has this ability, and she goes on to achieve it – pure and simple. It’s just the location that makes it specific but this is a universal story.
An 11-year old girl from a slum in Uganda, that’s the kind of film that Mira, or myself or Lupita would spend ten years trying to get made and no one would give us the money to do it. And here, we have the largest media company in the world (Disney) who are the one’s who made it.
Tell us about the time you took Madina on her first movie theater experience.
Halfway through filming, I took Madina to the movies for her first time, to see Jurassic World. She sat next to me, clawing into me with absolute fear, and then all of a sudden she turns to me during the film and says, “Is that what we are doing?” And I said, “have you ever seen a movie before,” and she said “no”. It was the first time she had seen a movie on the big screen, and this was halfway through us shooting her role. It was so extraordinary. And the next time she saw a film was herself at the Toronto Film Festival.
Her life is very much in parallel to what happens to Phiona in the movie. People may think that myself and Lupita were there guiding these children from a performance point of view and them never acting before, but I have to tell you, I’ve learned so much from them. It reinvigorated my desire to tell the truth in front of the camera because they didn’t really join what we were doing and the big screen, they were just doing life. They were just being real, being truthful, unaffected. And when you’ve done as many movies as I have done, you may lose something of that freshness, and just being around these kids was so reinvigorating for me, I owe them so much, I learned so much from being around them.
How did script and story come to you?
It came to me the normal way. But I have got to say, I was told who was making it, I was told who was directing it, and I started reading it and then I said to myself, ‘did no one send Disney the memo as to what this film is about and who is in it and who is not in it’? I was just so blown away by the fact that, as an African, as someone who has done films like the Last King of Scotland, which is a brilliant film, but a lot of Ugandans struggle with that film because all you know now is atrocity, and that is a miniscule part of that country’s history. There have been so many films that have crossed over into US consciousness, that are about the negative side of African life: child soldiers, disease, corruption; not to say that those aren’t a part of African life, but they are a part of life anywhere in the world.
What we haven’t had is the context of the great things that happen there as well. So when I saw that this film was a life affirming film about a young girl, set in Africa, the kind of film that I would want anyone to see as an example of what the vibrancy of life is like on that continent combined with…you know, I remember seeing Mississippi Masala and thinking ‘oh my goodness what an amazing film’ and all the other films Mira has made; and Lupita, who I think is a transcendent actress and what she represents from an African point of the view, and the part I get to play. There was just so many about it that when I was reading, I couldn’t believe what I was reading, the kind of film I would be excited about seeing let alone being in.
How many times have you seen it already?
I’ve seen it about eight times.
What is it like watching yourself on the big screen?
For me, making movies is such a privilege. Being an actor, you are not promised anything, talent alone is not enough, you have to have a blessed life to actually do this. And to get to the point where you actually get the part, and the film gets made, and the film gets seen. There are so many hurdles before this happens. So by the time its actually being projected on the big screen, I’m always in the state of awe as to the fact that I get to do that – a medium that I find to be so powerful.
To watch this film with Phiona, Madina, and Robert who I play in the movie, and to see them weeping at images of themselves, its like you are watching people look in the mirror for the first time. Because we in the West take seeing movies with people who look like us for granted, you cannot begin to understand what it feels like to have your little tiny part of the world that is completely ignored and sidelined, projected for the world to see, enjoy, love, celebrate, dance at…that’s something that will never leave them, something that will never leave Uganda. As a country, this is going to change the narrative around that country, and to be part of something that does that is something that I will never take for granted.
What was your favorite memory with Lupita in this film?
My favorite memory was a scene she was doing in the market. And to see a bonified movie star, who is a fashion icon, who is world reknowned, for us to have a movie star who can also pass for a corn seller in Uganda, that is all you have to say about Lupita. For me, because that has never happened, we have never had someone who is currently on the cover of Vogue. You want to talk about representation, you want to talk about shifting a perspective, that means, that girls all across Africa who have her beautiful hew of skin suddenly have somewhere to look beyond their circumstances. She shackles the ceiling. So you have that, then you get to act with her, then you get to be friends with that person. It just goes on and on, I couldn’t lover her more if I tried, not only who she is, but what she represents.
Mira Nair (Director)
Explain your relationship to Katwe, Uganda. Is that a place where you spent a lot of time?
Katwe is fifteen-twenty minutes away from where I live. And around Katwe all the locations that you see, Gaba, the fishing village, that’s where I buy fish in every other day where Harriet sells her wears. The woodstacks, I love that place for a long time because it reminds me of the cremation grounds of Banaras in India where I also come from. These are the places that I love where I live; of course, anything to do with the edge of Lake Victoria, the birds, the sort of sassiness, the vibrancy of how people even dress because Kampala is the central of used clothing capital of the world. This is what I love. No matter what you have, like Katende says in the film, ‘you have to focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have’.
And that is the joy, and complete dignity that I have around me in our people, in the courtesies, in the grace, in the fact that you may be hungry but if the music comes on, you are going to dance. That type of life is quality, and what I gravitate towards. It was such a privilege in Phiona’s remarkably true story to be able to consolidate that love that I have for my home. And in its slang, in its music, in everything, in every aspect: the redness of the earth, the equator runs through Kampala so it’s extremely green, people don’t know this. They think of Africa as sort of one dark blob of a continent, they have no idea of the specificity of places and the specificity of our people. It was a great joy to bring everyone together.
Largely, I also have a film school there for twelve years called Maisha, and 30% of our crew was the alumni of our film school. The last shot of the video for Number One Spice, we lost the location at the last minute and so it was all filmed in our film school Maisha.
Tell us about the song Number One Spice.
Number one spice is a song that Brian sings in the story to sell salt. We learn through these lyrics, the number one spice brings the flavor to the fish, brings the flavor to the rice. It turned out to be this really catchy thing that everyone started to fall in love with.
Speaking on Tendo Nagenda, Ugandan Disney Executive and his importance to the film.
The reason this movie is here, the Vice President of Disney from Uganda, sort of by Burbank, Tendo Nagenda. Thank you Tendo and thank you everyone at Disney who didn’t mess with me at all. They just let me do my thing. It was really a great thing to make this film without being sanitized, without varnish, without sugar-coating.
Tell us about Madina, the main character.
Madina is extraordinary. I must have looked for about seven months, I saw about 700 young girls, mostly Ugandan, some Kenya, some in England. I knew that she would come from Uganda, but I hadn’t fallen in love yet and I trust that instinct. One day, my costume director and my son who was her casting assistant, went to this dance company, a little dance company in a neighboring community to Katwe.
There, they photographed this ten year-old girl in rehearsal, dancing; covered in sweat, she had this absolutely magnetic smile, and they brought it home to me. I sort of rolled my eyes, like ‘oh my God, 701, another girl,’ but then I looked at her and she just arrested me with her physicality, grace and luminosity – she just shines with life. And like Phiona, Madina is from very similar streets, very similar community. She sold corn for a living as a young child, she danced as oppose to Chess, it was her way to climb out of the community to some extent. She goes to school and dances at hotels on Sunday nights.
We put her through a lot of work, 3-4 weeks of studying Chess, and her English. To carry a film like this with major legends opposite her is a big thing. Set by set, the focus and her discipline of being an artist, somebody who is use to performing since the age of 4, also her control she had of her body as a dancer was immensely at fault to her breakthrough. As sort of her film parents, David and Lupita really protected her, and helped her, and she is immensely trusting of them, all of us are like a family. And so Phiona, who taught me how to play Chess, and Robert.
So the actual intimacy you feel is the intimacy in life.
In regards to working with the children.
I made a film, well one of my first films with these street kids, and I think a lot of my learning during that film was to see how children were between takes, and that was the treasure, how they reveal themselves. It was the same with Queen of Katwe, it was seen how Benjamin makes the most extraordinary sounds, or even Gloria, it comes from what I’m looking at, and even the finger-snapping. So I asked for these things as I wanted them to be the rhythm of the children, and it comes from the children. It was Madina who taught us how to bathe in half an inch of water and wash her hair. It was absolutely balletic, the grace of it was amazing and that’s because that’s what her life is. And these things you can harness, but you can’t direct with that poetry, with that grace. This was the beautiful thing about Queen of Katwe, working with the street, working with the community, working in real places.
Will there be a chance for people on the continent of Africa to see the film?
We are leaving on a plane for 5 days flat, all of us are going to Kampala – and that’s the biggest premiere on the first of October. Then we are going to Johannesburg and doing a premiere there, the southern part of Africa. It’s a first for Disney, to open systematically across the continent. It’s a huge thing.
About five years ago is when we started having movie theaters, which is why Phiona and Madina hadn’t gone to the movies before. Phiona’s first film ever was the Toronto world premiere of Queen of Katwe. We have a huge campaign through my Maisha film school to bring a thousand school children into the theaters to see Queen of Katwe. Going to the movies is $10 and $10 is roughly a family dinner, so it’s not something that’s economically easy to do, going to the movies.
What’s the message for young aspiring actors?
It always amazes me because I started like Phiona. I would say to my students as I do, trust your self, trust your instincts. Take courage from being distinctive. Don’t try to blend in and be one of the cookie-cut pack. Tell the story you know, and have the humility to admit what you don’t know. But mostly, I like to say that the story is life and the world around you. In order to be a director, you have to have something to say, and in order to have something to say, you really have to engage in the world. So when I came to Kampala in 1989, I had never been to the continent, it was a scary place, civil war had just ended, soldiers and bombed out main roads. But here I am, 27-28 years later, and this is absolutely my home, I engage in that life and that’s all I know is engagement. And that’s what I can speak out, because if you are not engaged, you don’t have a story.
Any plans with Disney to use this movie as a campaign to get black girls and black children to play Chess, both as an educational tool and empowering tool?
In terms of Disney, we are really spear-heading this movement in Nairobi and in Kampala to get school kids to come and see this film in the way it ought to be seen, and that’s just the beginning. We also have fund for education for all the Pioneers in the film to be taken through to the University. We are inquiring about building a real Chess Academy.
My film school Maisha, which has now trained about 650 young east African film makers, we are hoping the film reviews are insanely excellent and that Disney will finally give me a check to build our school. Because I’m not going anywhere, I live there, and this film is really about us as a people and us as a community, and it’s really impossible I think to ignore. So we are hoping that the wave will continue into becoming an ocean.
The immensely inspiring and captivating film premieres today (Friday) in select US theaters, and is definitely a must see, if you ask me. The spirit of Queen of Katwe, the people of Uganda and to know the feeling of triumph in a life that shows you otherwise.