The black actress cast as Anne Boleyn has said that some viewers will be unable to get past her skin colour but that those who do will be rewarded with a human story.
Jodie Turner-Smith, (Queen and Slim) who stars in Anne Boleyn on Channel 5, said that people who were prepared to suspend their disbelief would see a natural performance in a thrilling tale. “It’s much more approachable and appealing to a contemporary audience when you cast this way because we are distilling this down to a human experience,” she told Radio Times. “If you ask anyone to watch a film or to observe any art, you are asking them to suspend their beliefs.
“I am aware it’s going to be a stretch for some people because they will feel too distracted by that, but I think for a lot of other people who are finally ready to see the world in a different way, they’re going to see that this is a human story we are telling, and a fascinating one at that.”
Paapa Essiedu, who portrays Boleyn’s brother George and who has previously played Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, said: “Everyone has the right to comment but I would question anyone who’s got a problem with this but hasn’t got one with believing that a spaceship can fly in Star Wars or that a giant bird can talk in Sesame Street.”
Turner-Smith, who was born in Peterborough in Cambridgeshire but grew up in America, said she never felt that portraying an English queen would be off limits. “When I envision the world for myself and what is possible I don’t put limitations on it,” she said. “I would never say, ‘No one will ever give me this role.’ I definitely had an awareness that no one had given me a part like that yet but to me it felt so natural to play a queen.”
