The actress deep dives into the role of Tashi Duncan, her biggest character departure to date.
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00:00Yes, absolutely not a tennis player before, no experience.
00:06So quite the challenge, but part of the way through,
00:11because tennis, I don't know if you've ever played,
00:13but unless you've been playing
00:14since you were four years old,
00:16you're not gonna be Venus or Serena anytime soon, okay?
00:20So I came to that conclusion very early,
00:23and I realized, okay, so how am I going to approach this?
00:27And truthfully, you know,
00:28Luka doesn't typically do storyboards,
00:31but for all the tennis sequences
00:33between the boys and myself,
00:34everything was storyboarded and planned and choreographed,
00:39because you can't, no matter how great you are,
00:41you can't put the ball in the same place every time.
00:45Like, tennis is not like, it is improvised.
00:50It's not like a choreographed sport, you know?
00:53So we had to approach it from a sense of choreography,
00:57so I tried to approach it from a dance perspective,
01:02and I was learning a dance,
01:04and I just tried to sync up with my double
01:07as much as possible, match her footwork and her form,
01:12and just visually try to mirror her as much as possible.
01:18You think that tennis is about expressing yourself,
01:23doing your thing.
01:24You don't know what tennis is.
01:27What is it?
01:30Tashi Duncan.
01:31She's in another league.
01:33You were incredible today.
01:34Come on!
01:36To have a fashion line, a foundation.
01:39She's gonna turn her whole family into millionaires.
01:46What are you gonna do now?
01:47Unfortunately, my only skill in life
01:49is hitting a ball with a racket.
01:51I want you to be my coach.
01:53How often does this happen?
01:55Going after the same girl?
01:57Come here.
01:58Which one of us?
01:59Oh!
02:04She's a lady.
02:07This film is a pretty big departure for you
02:08in more than one way.
02:10Just to kick things off, I'd like to know,
02:12what is it about this particular story
02:13that made you want to produce it
02:15and make sure it saw the big screen?
02:17I think that, you know, I think the script was brilliant.
02:21I think the script was brilliant,
02:23and I really, you know,
02:26sometimes I have difficulty getting through scripts.
02:28Like, if it doesn't capture my interest,
02:31like, my brain starts wandering,
02:32and this was one of those ones
02:34that just, like, I kept turning the page.
02:36And it felt like a challenge.
02:40Like, the character was incredibly complicated
02:44and messy and difficult.
02:47And I think that alone,
02:49not even including, like,
02:51having to learn how to be a tennis player,
02:53you know what I mean?
02:54Presented this big challenge,
02:56but I think sometimes being a little bit nervous is good.
03:01And I think entrusting in Luca,
03:04who was the perfect person for this piece,
03:08and understanding that he felt the same way
03:10about the characters and the story that I did,
03:13and wanted to create the same thing that I wanted to create.
03:17And being able to just be creatively a part of something
03:21and have a real seat at the table in that way
03:24is very special.
03:26Tashi is a departure from a lot of the characters
03:28we've seen you play before.
03:29And for one, we see her from childhood to adulthood,
03:32and it's our first time seeing you in your 30s.
03:35It's our first time seeing you as a mom.
03:36So I'm kind of curious how you were able
03:38to kind of strike those nuances
03:40while still showing her as a dynamic powerhouse personality
03:45from being 17, 18, to being 30, 31.
03:50Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
03:51I think for me, it's kind of a luxury
03:55to be able to like carry a character through time,
03:58because it means you don't have to create
04:00a backstory for them.
04:01You already know where they were and what happened to them
04:03and how they got the way they are.
04:07And so for me, it was just about tracking emotionally
04:10who she is and where she's at.
04:15And what that injury does to her.
04:17And what, as she's older, what, there's like a,
04:23when they're younger, there's a certain level of levity
04:26and joy, it's like a sparkle, you know what I mean?
04:29That over time fades and becomes jaded
04:33and becomes desperate to just hold on to whatever she can
04:40and keep her life together.
04:43And this composure or this idea of a false composure
04:47maybe that she's portraying to other people,
04:50because I think she's responsible being a coach,
04:52being, you know, this, having all these duties,
04:56being a coach, a mother, you know, whatever,
04:59a businesswoman, she just,
05:02she feels like she doesn't have the time
05:04to wallow in her own self-pity or her own pain,
05:08which I'm sure is an experience many women,
05:10specifically black women, face, right?
05:14And so she just pivots and pushes forward.
05:18And we see through that pushing,
05:21the cracks are starting to form.
05:23Now, this is also probably the most sexualized character
05:27we've seen you play.
05:28And as we saw back during Mother Marie,
05:30I think a lot of audiences sometimes still have problems
05:33seeing you as a grown woman and seeing you in that way.
05:37Listen, sometimes I do too.
05:38I'm like 27, 27.
05:41Can't even believe I picked up on you, right?
05:43It sure did, because I was like,
05:46I feel like I was 18 five minutes ago
05:48and I don't know what's happening and I'm an adult
05:50and I don't, I don't, I don't know.
05:52I don't know, but here we are.
05:55Exactly, here we are.
05:56And you really are owning that.
05:58And it's a very sexy role, but it's not explicit.
06:01How are you able to, I guess, as a character,
06:05draw that balance and kind of exude that sexiness
06:07without having to show actual sexy in the film?
06:12Yeah, well, I think, you know,
06:13that's the power of filmmaking.
06:15I think Luca does a beautiful job
06:17at making things feel sexy,
06:19feel very visceral and personal and intimate
06:23with the way he chooses to shoot things
06:26and place the camera.
06:28I think sometimes it's literally the POV,
06:30but I think also, you know,
06:32tennis acts as a metaphor for sex and power
06:35and all these other things as well.
06:38And for me,
06:42it just felt like, you know, the right way to do it.
06:46And I also appreciate too,
06:48that like, I think everyone is equally sexualized.
06:53You know what I mean?
06:54Like everybody has their own kind of gaze, I suppose,
06:59on each of the characters.
07:00So it feels very,
07:02it doesn't feel like disproportionate in any way.
07:05You did kind of touch on this earlier,
07:06but I feel like Tashi's role in this movie
07:08as a black woman, it's there,
07:11but it's kind of not harped on.
07:12I guess it's kind of, I don't want to say ignored,
07:14but I feel like it's not super a part
07:17of the love triangle narrative,
07:20even though there is like a quick line
07:22that kind of mentions, you know,
07:24the racial aspect of it.
07:26Was it a conscious decision on you and Luca's part
07:28to kind of exclude a lot of that from the story
07:31to focus on the love triangle
07:33or what was the decision-making process
07:35to kind of not really focus on Tashi's blackness
07:39as it relates to the love story of two white men?
07:42Well, I think it's something that, like I said,
07:44is done in a nuanced way,
07:48in the sense that like, for me, for her,
07:51tennis, her relationship to it
07:54and why she is so passionate about it
07:56is because of her access to it,
07:59because she doesn't come from
08:01the same privileged background as these two boys,
08:04because she doesn't have anything else to fall back on,
08:06because her family, you know, didn't want her to go,
08:10couldn't afford the kind of school
08:12that they would want to go to
08:14and wouldn't want her going there anyway, you know?
08:16So like there's, there are certain aspects
08:20that are specific to her experience
08:23that I think feel very honest
08:27and also play into her relationship with them,
08:30with the boys, but also her relationship
08:32with what she loves, which is tennis,
08:34and why it is so devastating to her
08:37when this injury happens,
08:39because there was no backup plan,
08:41there wasn't anything else
08:43that she felt she could fall back on, she had to succeed,
08:45or her want or need to have an education
08:49and go to college and have something else,
08:52you know what I mean?
08:53Like there's a different sensibility
08:55and a different dire-ness,
08:59I don't know if that's even a word,
09:01to her perseverance and what she needs
09:05and what she wants out of life.
09:08So while it's maybe not the first thing,
09:13you know, maybe we focus more on the love triangle,
09:18maybe it's not the first conversation,
09:19but it is throughout,
09:21I think in a very beautiful, nuanced way,
09:24because it's truth, you know?
09:27And it's her reality.
09:29And it's a part of her psychology
09:32and why she moves through life the way she does.