Exclusive: Jodie Turner-Smith on playing ‘Anne Boleyn’
Currently playing on AMC+ is the Original Series, Anne Boleyn, which tells the notorious tale from a different perspective – hers. Anne Boleyn is both an icon and an enigma; branded a witch, a sexual temptress, a calculating opportunist and a traitor. Starring acclaimed actress Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim, Without Remorse) as the legendary Queen, the three-part drama has its finale airing on Thursday, December 23.
A new retelling of Anne Boleyn’s infamous downfall and execution, the series reimagines the final months of the eponymous Queen’s life from her own perspective, as she struggles to secure a future for her daughter and to challenge the powerful patriarchy closing in around her. Anne Boleyn depicts the key moments that cause Anne to topple, unpacking her immense strength, her fatal vulnerabilities, and her determination to be an equal among men.
Filmed on location in Yorkshire, Turner-Smith leads the cast as Tudor Queen Anne Boleyn. The ensemble cast includes Emmy® and BAFTA Award nominated Paapa Essiedu (Gangs of London, I May Destroy You) as Anne’s brother and Tudor nobleman George Boleyn, Mark Stanley as Henry VIII, one of the most famous Kings in British history, and Lola Petticrew as Anne’s love rival, Jane Seymour.
For Smith-Turner, aside from Queen & Slim, this is her biggest role on the small screen. She began her career as a model which soon led to her debut role in HBO’s True Blood as Siren. Turner-Smith gained notoriety for her role as Sgt. Azima Kandie in TNT’s The Last Ship and then in the Syfy/Netflix series Nightflyers as Melantha Jhirl. She was last seen opposite Michael B. Jordan in Tom Clancy's Without Remorse.
Blackfilmandtv.com caught up with Turner-Smith as she spoke her role as Anne Boleyn.
What was the attracted to take me on this role?
Jodie Turner-Smith: I really, really love the human story at the center of it. It felt very relevant, very relatable. Just this idea of being a woman and having limitations put on you and being treated as an outsider. It's wild that we are where we are with reproductive issues now 2021. And how many parallels that draws to that time in terms of women really being told that their value and their ability to bear children and that being very much a male centered patriarchal limitation.
You can play this role on Broadway, and no one will complain, because we've seen different variations of different roles played by anybody. But when it's on screen, people have opinions. Why do you think this is so and did you have any thoughts with it when you first got this offer?
Jodie Turner-Smith: I think we have resistance to seeing it on screen versus on stage. There’s more of an understanding fantasy when you go and see stage production because there's no between you and the actors. They are in front of you. Whereas in film, and television, this world has been created for you in which you're asked to suspend belief. It’s all laid out for you in a way that is presented as some form of reality, or few that way, weirdly, even though we know that it's not reality, it's a non reality. There's this element of realism, that goes into things when we see a film or television show. That is part of it. Because obviously, yes, we haven’t seen this in theater for so long, just not in this medium. But hopefully, we're going to see it more and more. It will get to the point where people are not so shocked and appalled by it. They just embrace this idea that we as artists, have to find the humanity in those stories, and to bring our own humanity to those stories and nuances of that; to tell the story in a different way each time.
There's a reason why the story changes when you think about it, like theatrical productions. When you think about Hamlet, Hamlet has been played by so many different actors and every time you see it, it's different, because that actor brings their own interpretation of it. They are not trying to do a carbon copy of the last performance. Because, first of all, that can't even be done and that is understood. That is what we put into this project. I'm an artist, and I'm bringing my own wealth of my own experiences in life and my own opinions and interpretations. This character, bringing all of it together in order to tell a human story, in the hopes that being so unconventional in that I'm not a white woman, I’m playing a historical figure who was white, but in a fictional retelling a story. That's a fictional character. The idea is to step away from this idea of race and to tell a human story. A story about desire and love and hope and heartbreak and grief, ambition and the limitations of women, which is very real, as I said before, fighting against the patriarchy, and being an outsider.
You’ve worked on projects before, on TV and film, but this is a big role for you. How much did you grow as an actress by taking on this role?
Jodie Turner-Smith: I go into every production that I ever down with an open heart, and with an eye towards expansion, and learning. I asked myself, who is a woman that I will be in the audience and who I will be at the end of this. I have an awareness that with each production that I do, because of how lucky I am to work with the other actors, the other artists, and filmmakers, that means that I'm going to learn something and I'm going to be something larger than I was when I started. That's what experience does to you. That's what each role has seen. It was really amazing to step into this, I did it. It was my first job after I gave birth. So that in and of itself, but its own lessons, it was really a moment for me to reevaluate myself as well as an artist and see like where I stood. The way in which your my physical body was different than praying different because I had just gone through birthing. That added its own. I feel like there are different things that I see and think and feel now, because I have done this. And because I've done everything that I have done before coming to that role. All of it adds to it.
With as many costumes you wore in the series, is there a favorite?
Jodie Turner-Smith: Every time I looked at a costume, I was like, “Ooh, this is my favorite.” I really think that costume designer, Lindsay was so creative with color. I've really loved the different colors that she put me in. I love the green, I love blue. I love red. I don't have a favorite honestly. They were also so fun and interesting and amazing. I think it was Jack Nicholson who said, “let the costume do the acting." Once you put the costume on, that allows you to step literally into the shoes of this character that you're playing.
What do you want audiences to get out of this particular series that people probably didn't get before?
Jodie Turner-Smith: I want people to see the mother's story. People always says that she was a disruptor and a seductress instead of just seeing her as a woman and a mother; and a mother, who was doing the best that she could with what she had.
What do you have coming up next?
Jodie Turner-Smith: I have the long awaited After Yang coming out next. That stars Colin Farrell and directed by Kogonada. Right now, I’m filming The Independence in New York with Brian Cox.