Letitia Wright gave Shadow And Act tons of love during her interview with Trey Mangum about her upcoming role in Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, part of McQueen’s Small Axe anthology of films about Britain’s West Indian community.

The film tells the story of the Mangrove Nine, a group of Black British activists who were arrested in 1970 and tried for inciting a riot. The activists were, in fact, responding to the over-policing of the Mangrove Restaurant, a meeting place for Black activists in Notting Hill. The restaurant was routinely subjected to raids under false charges.

Wright said working on the film was a prideful moment for her.

“To be a part of the project is…an honor and I’m really proud to be able to bring it to life,” she said. “The importance of what happened back then, with the Mangrove Nine and the trial and all they overcame, for a young Black woman like myself…they paved the way for me in some way to have a little bit of freedom and to be able to educated about what went down back then is again, an honor to bring to life.”

She also mentioned how sadly ironic it is that some of what happened during the 1970s is replaying again in America after the country’s spring and summer of protests spawned by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and others.

“The whole idea of…being on set…but you don’t know a year from that a reenactment will take place in real life, a reflection of that [will happen in real life]…it saddens me that we have to have art imitating life and life imitating art,” she said. “As a fellow human being who wants to see love and [see] people prosper and be kind to one another, it’s sad that it’s still happening.”

You can watch the full interview below:

Mangrove comes to Amazon Prime Video on Nov. 20.

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