Lashana Lynch - ‘I didn’t know when I was auditioning that I was going to be 007’

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0:38Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that firmly believes in failing better. As Truman Capote said, failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. Before we get to our guest, I'd love to quickly remind you about our special subscriber bonus podcast, Failing with Friends. This is where my guest kindly stays in the studio a few minutes more and helps me to answer your questions and offer advice on some of your failures too. Because we had a bona fide A-lister today, Lashana Lynch, who had lots of other things to get onto, I get the extra special opportunity to do it on my own. Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes and you can send me an email or look out for my call outs once a month on Instagram for short form questions.

1:19Thank you so much.

1:24From an early age, Lashana Lynch's parents were convinced that she'd either end up doing something sporty or something creative. As it turned out, she's found a way to combine the two. Lynch is one of our stellar rising screen stars and often performs her own stunts. Her role as Maria Rambeau in the Marvel Cinematic Universe saw her learning how to fly a plane. In The Woman King, she spent five hours a day in the gym to look convincing while wielding a machete. In the Bond movie, No Time to Die, she was taught how to arm, disarm and fire a gun when she played the only woman in the film franchise ever to have been given a license to kill.

2:04Lynch sang and danced as Mrs Honey in the movie adaptation of Matilda and earlier this year took on the role of Rita Marley in the Bob Marley biopic, One Love. Now she returns to our screens as MI6 agent Bianca, starring opposite Eddie Redmayne in the Sky TV series of The Day of the Jackal, adapted from the eponymous novel by Frederick Forsyth. It is her strength that comes through in all her roles, not just physical, but emotional too. She was born in West London, raised by a social worker father and a housing manager mother who took cleaning jobs for extra money. Lynch's grandparents came to the UK from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation, a heritage she mentioned in a moving speech when she accepted the 2022 Rising Star BAFTA.

2:54I'm grateful, she said that night, for a working class foundation that has taught me everything I needed to know about failure, about no's, about what no's mean, and how to celebrate your yeses. Lashana Lynch, welcome to How To Fail. Thank you for having me. Thank you for that intro. Oh my gosh, I was like, hmm, memory lane. Good. So nice. You could not be a more perfect guest. When I watched that speech that you gave accepting that Rising Star Award, I was like, yes, exactly that. It's about knowing how to cope with failure. Knowing how to be resilient enough to bounce back from your nose. Tell me more about your working class upbringing and why that gave you that ability.

3:39I mean, resilience is the first word that comes to mind when it comes to just mustering up strength, confidence, willpower in order to do anything, even to get out of bed and to decide that I want to be great today or I want to inspire somebody to be great today. um my background has informed how I look upon my future the kind of legacy that I want to leave in the world and not doing that with a weight actually seeing that as a privilege um and I do believe that some people have heard me say that before and they go gosh isn't it not a lot to want to you know leave something big in the world is that not a big weight on your shoulders but I see it as really, like I said in my BAFTA speech, like a real opportunity to honour those before me.

4:31And especially as closely as my parents or my grandparents who sacrificed way more than I've sacrificed in my life in order for me to have a good life. And I think that the more that people, especially from my background, hear that, they're able to, I don't know, just have an icon about their day-to-day life. because it's not about the big thing that you're going for every day. It's about the increments of your life that are going to help create your story, essentially. Well, I think we're done here. That was the most amazing answer. We covered every point. Thank you. That was so good. It strikes me reading about you that there's a difference between money and worth in that you were clearly raised and embody such a sense of self-worth that is so impressive and calming to be around.

5:21And that's different from having had loads of money because your parents clearly worked very hard. That's why I thought it was important to mention in the introduction what they did for a living and how your mother worked around her day job to give you the things that you needed. Can you talk to me a bit about that, a bit about the importance of being raised with a sense of worth? It's priceless. I don't know where it comes from. I really wish that there was like a, I don't know, a family history book whereby like I get to learn about how that came into my, into my line, especially my female line on both sides of my family, because I feel like everyone I come across in my family are just, they just have that thing.

6:04And it's not that they have it at the tip of their fingers all the time they really have to dig for it sometimes as do I but there's just there's just a knowing and a capability that I've been able to draw upon for me personally and for me my career off the back of the you can do this like there's no question it's not a question of if it's a when and how and it's a your choice and once you get taught at a young age that you have a choice to do something, which not all children get to learn early. I appreciate you just, you just firm in your core. Um, and I'm really grateful I had that because it's informed a lot of my career decisions.

6:52It's informed a lot of my yeses and no's and it's informed, like you mentioned, how you, how you digest the no's because they can be so painful sometimes and they can be really hard hitting when you're in a good place. And my parents, especially with the jobs that they had, they're very community based. They're very like, they, you know, my dad dealt with a lot of teenagers from different backgrounds. My mom dealt with a lot of elderly people from different backgrounds and they were all within our community and all taught them something and they were both able to come home and impart their experiences without putting them on us as children, which I imagine as a parent is a hard thing to do as well.

7:38Yeah. And a hard thing to watch your child digest as time goes on because it's the real, real. Like they didn't sugarcoat anything. They were like, this is what it is. But at the same time, by the way, my parents have like big taste. there was we shopped at Peter Jones and John Lewis and Waitrose and like we had like everything we could imagine because they're like thinkers and doers which let me know that there's nothing that's impossible I could wear Russell and Bromley shoes to high school and have everyone be like wow why are you not wearing like worse shoes because you're working class and like you don't have that much money I'm like no but we're smart we know how to utilize our resources how to use our brains and how to unfortunately appear as though things are better than they are which um down the line will give you hopefully an opportunity to remember that the things that are not good or not as they should be to deal with them in-house also right yes you know yes Yes, the strength of presentation.

8:46Yeah. And I think one of the things that I always notice in your performances is you're thrown into what most people would find incredibly intimidating situations. James Bond franchise, like, you know, facing a racist backlash because of your casting, becoming the only woman in that franchise to have a double O number. But I remember in 2015 seeing you on stage in Chichester in Educating Rita. Yeah. And you were incredible. And it was the first night and Lenny Henry dried up on stage. He forgot his lines. And the thing that struck me, I still remember it so vividly. You were brilliant. You were so calm, stayed in character and made it seem like it was part of the scene.

9:33Now to have that poise at that age, it sounds like that's where it comes from. That idea of presentation and like keeping your cool under pressure yes gosh I'm so happy that you saw that that was one of my favorite plays I loved it growing up and I was so grateful to have played in that and like it did it did allow me to remember grace that that just it happens it really does just happen to the best of us at the worst of times and it was press diet and it was high mistakes. I have two slices of training to fall back on. My childhood training and my upbringing and my drama school training, which taught me to just carry on, always carry on, never let on that anything's wrong because the audience may actually go with you if you continue this stream of what we're doing, what's happening, I don't know where I'm at, let's leave the stage because we need to find some help.

10:30But that was actually really like a turning point for me in my career and my life, to know that when you see your training in action and then you look back on it, you think, oh, actually the thing that I've always wanted to do, be strong enough and confident enough to just be, it worked. It really worked. Fascinating. And I also wonder if that's why you're so good at playing special agents because not only did you play one in the James Bond movie but you're now playing one in the Day of the Jackal an MI6 agent called Bianca yeah and she's such an interesting character because obviously she's incredibly good at her job but it doesn't come without a cost or without a sense of slight would it be fair to say self-betrayal or vulnerability like she's kind of confused about why she's doing what she's doing sometimes whilst being very good at it is that drew you to the role?

11:24Like you said, I've been a member of MIS before and that was wonderful and changed my life in different ways. When I read this script, I thought, oh, this is a real nice opportunity to dive back into that world and explore how women of that, you know, of that world, of that thinking, of that mind and experience come to be there and how they handle the rest of life whilst being this quote-unquote superhero that everyone sees them as being like oh you know they're very aloof and they travel a lot and they've got so much responsibility and they're highly skilled but that doesn't come without questioning oneself knowing how to use your vulnerability balancing family and having a household and also remembering who you are in your core so I think that playing someone like her who has so much to contend with there's so many complications in her life and in her her mental state is really juicy it's really interesting but a really good character study I re-watched it the other day and I was like this is every woman I know in the workplace something's gone wrong or they get a text or get a phone call or their boss has said something that they don't want or didn't get that promotion and then they've had to kind of find something in themselves to anchor them in who they are and it's just so hard and we never get to like really discuss it on screen so I'm really glad that Bianca exists in that world in a high-powered very tense and boiling environment whereby she can um she can do both And we'll probably return to some of those themes later because it kind of plays into one of your failures.

13:12But before we get into your failures, I've got one more question. What is the favourite stunt or physical thing that you have ever learnt through a role to do? it's great it's just it was so hard in the woman king I didn't my own stance entirely for the first time maybe the last time ever because it was so hard I had to run and jump like and bear hug a man in the air and as he turned to to drop on the floor I had to stay on him turn around land on my back kind of roll past my back and land on my feet. I don't know if that makes sense. It does make sense, but that is some serious acrobatics. It's insane.

14:01I'm not an acrobat, nor am I a gymnast. I mean, I started ballets, finished very early. I played sports, didn't finish them all. I don't have the full equipment to have known how to do that, but I'm impressed that someone thought I could do that and that I eventually did do it because it goes back to the knowing that I can do something that allows me to even agree to do it. It's strange and it was terrifying at the beginning. But once I saw that I was safe and secure and that people have my best interests at heart, it just became such an empowering thing to do. That's such an amazing metaphor for how I see failure, which is, I mean, it's not quite as challenging as jumping and meeting a man in a bear hug midair and then flipping over and landing on your feet.

14:54But it's that sense of once you've lived through something that was really challenging at the time, it gives you the strength and the self-confidence to look back and think, well, I withstood that so I can probably withstand the next thing. And I think that that's such an empowering realisation. Yeah. It's forced me to be kind to myself when that doesn't happen because I know that that is something that can come because we're capable of anything as human beings but if that isn't a part of who I am or if I don't achieve that if I fail at that sometimes then that's okay because I have had a string of muscle memories where that does happen and then suddenly it doesn't and it's like it's jarring because I'm like that's just it's not what I do anymore this is my routine I start this I go through this process and this happens so yeah the art of being kind to yourself whilst finding those things that eventually become part of your character it's a slow lesson and you're so right there's a difference between doing your best and always achieving the best actually it's the doing that's the important bit but it's sometimes hard to remember we always appear to be something that we're not because we want to be more confident and you know seem like we have it together and just we have our outside of the house face and then we have the inside the house face where we're like what is going on just a mess of neuroses basically basically but like there's so many people who if you actually allowed yourself to be like I'm struggling here are you feeling that too they'd be like god yeah me too oh my gosh I'm so glad I can exhale now and actually talk about it so yeah the art of talking as well is something that I've talking and sharing is something that I've learned to utilize over the years.

16:44Let's get onto your failures. So your first failure is about your Nan's bangle. I've never had a failure like this before. And it's so sad because it's so obviously a loss. Yeah. Go ahead and tell us the story. On the night of the London premiere for No Time to Die, which because of the pandemic and everything that was happening in the world, that premiere had like been pushed by, it felt like two years. Yeah, I remember. We were desperate for the Bond film. Yeah, so it eventually come and, you know, I had all my friends and family and was so excited. I had a bangle of my nan's who passed away when I was 14.

17:28I was 34 at the time went literally 34 when this premiere took place. So I'd been wearing that bangle for 20 years straight. Like even in school, I'd take it off for some sports and then put it back on again. Something in me told me to take it off. Yeah, I just took it off and put it by some jewelry that my stylist had set aside and went to the premiere, had a great time. and then towards the end of the night I was like where's my bangle just had a like a pull on my gut I was like something's happening my bangle let me just check let me just check where it is my makeup artist was coming in to the room to prep for me coming back to get ready for another thing and um I asked him to look and he was like can't see anywhere I'm gonna keep looking until you get back and I came back and saw his face and I was like seen it and he was like it's not it's not anywhere let's look together and we literally turned the room upside down and it was not there and I spent the rest of the evening going well it's gonna it's gonna come back because it's my man's bangle I don't live without that it's been 20 years and it never came back and it has been one of the like most painful things to experience, having lost this person and then having this one thing that keeps you, it's like almost like a tick when you feel the thing, a ring or something, you know, you feel so connected to that person because their energy is in this object.

19:13And now it's just not here it was just a strange sad experience I'm so sorry I can feel the sadness yeah and there are so many things I want to say but first of all I want to ask about your nan because I'd love to know more about what she was like and how important she was to you growing up yeah highly she was my second mum really I spent a lot of time there she kind of split part raised me with my parents and then her and just being filled with the a different age of wisdom she was like traditional Jamaican really um funny but serious came to England you know a young age with her children bought a townhouse in Shepherd's Bush, had a business.

20:10That's one of the examples of it is possible because my nan had three, four stories in her house and we didn't come from money. A lot of the things you see of me today, I believe is because of how she part raised me. What was her name? Gertrude. Oh, what a great name. I know. Gertie. Gertie. So chic. Good. I'm glad you think that. There's such a sense of spiritual closeness and guidance here that I'm getting from Gertrude and your relationship with her. And I wonder if you have probably thought this, that bangle was there for the journey to where you were always destined to be, which is on the red carpet, a James Bond film.

20:56And then maybe she felt like, I've done this bit and she doesn't need me in the same way anymore. It's so interesting that you say that because one of my best friends said exactly that when I was going through that grieving process. And I didn't believe it until maybe a couple months down the line when I could finally talk about it without crying. It's true. I feel like there was something that had cracked open at that time, that premiere or that film or that part of my life. There was something that was being shed. You don't need to hold on to all of these things from the past, namely things that come with me, because one, I'm here all the time.

21:39She genuinely is. But also, this is what I feel like the message was. You've learned so much about who you are and who you need to be now that you don't need the safety net, but you don't need to feel jolted when you don't sense the security net is there. Beautiful. Yeah. Just before we move on to your next failure, looking back now on No Time to Die, because I imagine it was frenetic and surreal to go through and then there's the delay of the pandemic and that's a different level of stress. How do you feel about it now, that experience? Definitely proud. Sometimes I see clips and like pictures and things and I'm like, gosh, that really happens.

22:21You know, these films began when my nan was around and my dad took me to the cinema a couple of times when I was a child to watch some of the early Bond movies. And just the character alone, which I didn't know when I was auditioning, that Nomi was going to be 007, by the way. Didn't you? No, no, no, no, no. How cool? When did you find out? When you got the script? Well, kind of, yeah. Yeah. It was still early on, but it wasn't upon getting the part. So it was, yeah, I look at it as this kind of moment with all of these things that helped me push past a part of myself in order to step into these massive shoes that actually ended up just being shoes.

23:07Yes, they just were your shoes. They're my shoes now. Yeah. Or sandals or heels or whatever you want. I love that. Yeah.

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24:52Let's go on to your next failure. I'm actually going to reverse the order in which you gave them to me. I'm sorry. Because I want to give this one a fair chunk of time. Your second failure is people-pleasing and not wanting to be the odd one out. as you put it, that has led to a fear of making a mistake or being judged for straying outside of those parameters. I think so many people will relate to this. Yeah. When did you first become aware of being a people pleaser? Between early teens and late teens. And it sounds like a long time, but actually that's, secondary school always feels long, but it's actually not.

25:33It's like, it's just a few years and it feels like 10 yeah you know you feel like you're there forever totally um and I realized that whenever groups of people friends or otherwise were making decisions I I felt like I had to be a part of that that decision I couldn't be like oh actually no I I don't think it should be pink I think it should be yellow because I would fear that people be like yellow why would you why would you do that and then I'd have to stand up for myself and and stand by my decision and it would have to be the right decision if that's what I'm choosing and and also I'd be standing alone and that's scary to just be here kind of on an island supporting yourself that didn't make any sense to me um it also like in your teens there's a pretense that you develop that means that you don't fully tell the truth you kind of go around things to make things sound palatable and easy and comfortable for others and I never want to make people uncomfortable I always want people to have a lovely experience with me and be like oh that was that was a nice time had but when and if that doesn't happen I I feel like I'm responsible for the person leaving in a different state that is not positive.

27:05Yeah, straying outside of those parameters is just really, it's always been really uncomfortable. And how much of that do you think is about a culture that made you feel either too much or not enough? I suppose what I'm inelegantly asking is whether at that time in your life race had a part to play. because I remember reading about a ballet teacher who said something about your posture and that is there an element there of you teenager you feeling like you have to overcompensate for already being what other people are making you feel is different I think that as a working class a black malmenated child in in the UK you're always gonna feel like it doesn't happen very early on it did for me because I started ballet at like seven eight um you're always gonna feel like the other is what you're responsible for even though it's something that just came with you it's never outwardly celebrated that was so well put sorry just had to say that yeah that was so good carry on oh good yeah yeah and it's and it's not it's not an easy responsibility if you have not been taught how to handle that if you're the first generation in this country and your parents had had different level of racism in their time yours is what 10 15 hopefully around that time hopefully not two years into your life um you're you're feeling the different you're feeling the next generation's interpretation of what their racism is.

28:43Even your parents can't quite teach you how you should handle that racism because racism changes like every day. The traumas land in different ways. And I think as a child, it wasn't just race, but I do look back on that story of the ballet teacher and think, oh, I really wish that was the story, but it was real life. What does she do exactly? It's all about posture and being upright and I've always had good posture and ballet like corrected that in a new way also in order to have good posture you have to tuck in your bum and I noticed that she wasn't telling the other children who were young white girls to um to tuck in their bottoms in that way and she just kept going on at me about not doing it right and that not being the way and that you've got an issue why do you keep sticking your bum out like that and I was like I'm not I'm literally at this point I'm concaved like I don't know what else to do and it was more than one lesson when I felt like she was singling me out for what I now know to be my beautiful body yes oh I thought no no I I can't do that.

30:00I can't be in here anymore. I'm too aware of the thing that my parents don't even talk to me about. I don't think they could ever imagine that a ballet teacher, dance, freedom of expression in that way would lead to her having an issue with, potentially an issue with her body. And I feel like if I didn't exit that situation then, I could have ended up really having some mental issues over my physical appearance. And that's where your wisdom came in, the wisdom of Gertrude and the self-knowledge. Because obviously you're aware of this people-pleasing tendency now, but it must be very difficult in a profession that is geared up towards pleasing an audience, towards pleasing casting directors.

30:46How do you handle that? Is it sometimes difficult to find your voice in certain situations where you're being expected to be a second one? Yes! Oh my gosh! It's a real challenge and a journey. I did decide that straight out of drama school, I didn't want to be typecast. I didn't want to be typecast for whatever that year said that anyone who looks like me should be. Because I know it changes every time. And I could say in 2010, I don't want to be typecast. But in 2016, I'm going to be typecast as a thing that I've maybe forgotten about. So the pleasing, I think because I decided what I wanted from my career, which by the way, is not where I am now.

31:31It's just like, I want a big, varied career. There were some comments and conversations happening around me that didn't affect me as much as they could have because I'd made my own stance. but at the same time you know that duck thing yes when you're doing this underwater it feels like I um had to find a different layer of protection in order for me to not continuously think about not being the right one or enough or or good for this or too tall or too curvy um or they don't want a black girl or they don't want a woman you know it has to be a man even though the script is just so open and it could be either um I yeah I just developed a skin but underneath really I was like am I just not doing the industry thing is there something that I've not been taught at drama school or in my early years of my career that I should know by now to make sure that I'm like the good actor, the acceptable actor.

32:41No one speaks about that, but there is something about, you know, the industry that is accepting and not accepting. And it changes all the time and you don't really know what it's going to be when. Yeah. And you don't want to be called a diva because you're a woman. You don't want to be seen as awkward in some way, but there's a very thin line between that and standing up for yourself in an entire culture that has been shaped by millennia of patriarchy that sees any woman who says anything that stands up for herself as being a bit awkward. So difficult. Yes. And also when you are strong, when you're a strong woman, it's like you are either expected to go even stronger or it's like frowned upon to be vulnerable and not really know what you're doing.

33:27There's like a happy medium that no one has created a barometer for that suddenly you should just understand because if you really speak up for yourself which I have always found very terrifying it's like oh she's talking what does that mean and how is she feeling is there is there an issue what's happening I'm like no no I'm just expressing that I would quite like a salad and I don't eat meat and like do you know what I mean there's just certain obvious things but then when you're kind of in the back and you're sitting in your vulnerability more I think that there is a confusion in that like but you're the strong one you can't be strong and vulnerable at the same time like here where we've hired you you have to be poised and ready and rearing to go and excited I'm like I'm just not always that way and can I ask you just because I'm interested because you're so fascinating to listen to talking about racism and how it has different iterations and fluctuations and it becomes kind of more insidious and then you have to keep aware and calling it out what were the typecasting conversations like what were you being typecast as in 2010 as opposed to 2016 and um so there is a street girl typecasting that around that time was really popular like the London street girl that like always talked in slang and was like lower class and uneducated and didn't have her dad around and kind of dropped out of school really early and lived in a bad area and didn't have any prospects in life.

35:22That was a casting that I saw float around, not necessarily just in my inbox, but I would hear friends say, oh, there's this character is like this. And I'd be like, that sounds awful to play. That's a lived experience, definitely. But to develop your career on that, I just didn't see it for myself. If I played a character like that once, I would like to think that I could have some autonomy in what her prospects are going to be how she feels about herself showing her vulnerability her pushing through something there being some kind of triumph about her in the end but I didn't have any control or power at the time so there's no way to get a character like that and then think oh actually I could turn it into this because it literally was what is on the page is what it's going to be now I could see that and see it as a really exciting opportunity because you have all sorts of characters, just like the ones I've described in movies over the last 10 years, that actually are really inspiring.