Naomi Ackie’s Rage-Fueled Rise to Stardom

Naomi Ackie flexes her biceps and jokingly growls at the café table. Laughing at herself, she marvels at her newfound fascination: the capabilities of her body when properly nurtured. “It’s funny with exercise,” she remarks, rolling her eyes, “because I used to do it just to try to be skinny.”

The 33-year-old British actor feels both embarrassed and empowered by this realization. For so long, she missed out on the mental and emotional benefits that physical strength can bring. “I observe a lot, and I see a lot, and I feel a lot. I don’t say everything, so I have to get it out somewhere,” she explains.

Once hesitant to venture into the gym’s weight room, Ackie now embraces her growing strength. Playing Whitney Houston in the 2022 biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody was a transformative experience that pushed her limits. “That role pushed me to the edge, to the point where I was like, I have to change something,” she recalls.

Portraying Houston from 19 to 48 years old, sometimes within the same day, was challenging. “I lost a lot of myself, and not because of the art of it,” she admits. “It was to do with me feeling under pressure and trying to not be hated by the world.”

In the six-month gap between playing Houston and her next film, Ackie discovered the gym and realized her physical and mental health were connected. Her performance earned her a Bafta nomination, but the experience also left her drained. She realized, “A job cannot mean so much that it steals my life’s joy. We’re gonna need to fix some priorities.”

During the 2023 Sag-Aftra strike, Ackie took a four-month break that underscored her unsustainable pace and the perfectionism she imposed on herself. “I didn’t realize how overwhelmed I was all the time,” she admits.

Today, Ackie embraces a “soft-life mode,” though she is eager to discuss her anger. Growing up, she gravitated toward powerful and visceral roles. Her filmography includes characters coping with trauma and rage, from The End of the F***ing World to Lady Macbeth.
She believes society conditions people to be well-behaved, particularly women, making it challenging to channel anger productively. “Anger is super, super useful. It’s a motivator. It’s a moving energy,” she asserts.

Her latest film Blink Twice, directed by Zoë Kravitz, explores themes of anger, misogyny, and revenge. Ackie plays a cocktail waitress who gets entangled with a billionaire tech mogul, portrayed by Channing Tatum. The characters, all dressed in white on a private island, slowly realize something is amiss. “I really connected with the things that are being taken from them,” Ackie says. The film speaks to the broader struggles of being a woman and the constant negotiation of autonomy and choice.

At a screening, a security guard admitted he didn’t understand the film, which Ackie finds indicative of the gender divide in interpreting such narratives. “The whole film is about bursting,” she explains, likening it to the everyday survival tactics people, especially women, employ.

Ackie was born in Camden but moved to Walthamstow at age five. She had no industry connections growing up; her father worked for Transport for London and her mother in the NHS. “I was 11 and I said, ‘I want to be an actor.’ My parents were like: ‘Wow, leftfield. Nay!’” Despite her initial aspirations for fame, her mother encouraged her to pursue acting for its love and craft.

The loss of her mother when Ackie was 22 deeply affected her, and she acknowledges dealing with grief and the compounded loss of her little sister. This has influenced her career and her perspective on life. “That doesn’t take away from the happiness, and it doesn’t take away from the sadness – they’re just existing in my body at the same time,” she shares.

Every year, Ackie contemplates quitting acting, a ritual her family now takes in stride. She approached her career with the working-class resolve her parents instilled in her, holding onto every safety net she could until she reached a breaking point at 27, when she decided to withdraw the safety net and give acting one last try. Within four months, she booked a role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, leading to significant parts in The End of the F***ing World and other notable projects.

Despite her success, Ackie gravitates toward roles that delve into darkness and struggle. “I haven’t had a happy-go-lucky life, and that’s fine, that’s what’s inside me,” she says. There’s something cleansing about exploring such characters, offering a form of intimacy and realness that aligns with her experiences.

Looking ahead, Ackie’s schedule remains busy with projects like Mickey 17 by Bong Joon-ho and the film adaptation of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. She remains grounded, channeling her evolving experiences into her craft. “Underneath all of that insecurity and shame is a gritty, grounded human being who’s super-resilient,” she reflects. Life’s lessons, she believes, deepen with time, continually enriching her journey as an actor and a person.

Source: The Observer