The Cast of the Harriet Tubman Movie Open up About Transforming for Their Roles
Harriet, director Kasi Lemmons's upcoming biopic about Harriet Tubman, shines a light on one of the most important women in American history.
The cast boasts Broadway veterans like Cynthia Erivo and Leslie Odom Jr., plus revered Hollywood actors like Clarke Peters and Vanessa Bell Calloway, not to mention a few musicians: Janelle Monáe and Jennifer Nettles.
Ahead of the movie's release on November 1, here's a breakdown of how the cast prepared for their characterizations.
The last time Harriet Tubman's story was told on-screen was over 40 years ago when Cicely Tyson portrayed her in 1978's A Woman Called Moses. While Tubman—the Black woman who not only escaped an enslaved life in Maryland to find freedom in Philadelphia, but lead others to do the same on the Underground Railroad—is famous enough to have replaced President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, she's never had her story told in a full-length feature film. That's due to change with Harriet, an upcoming historical biopic, in theaters November 1. The film is a historical adventure story following a woman whose main desire is freedom for herself and those she loves.
"The Harriet Tubman story is the story of freedom," director Kasi Lemmons told OprahMag.com. "If you ask a child, 'Tell me about Harriet Tubman,' they will say, 'She escaped for freedom, she ran, she went back to liberate others,' so I want that sense of liberation, the exhilaration for the quest for freedom to be what drives this movie. So it is not at all a slavery story, it’s a freedom story."
The story is only made better by the movie's cast, comprised of some of the biggest up-and-comers as well as household names. We've compiled a brief rundown of the main players in the movie, including how they prepared to tell a story that is a long, long time coming.
Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman
Erivo is a heavy hitter as a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winner (Harriet could complete her EGOT). She stole the Broadway stage in The Color Purple, and she'll be playing Aretha Franklin in the upcoming Genius: Aretha miniseries. Erivo has been with the Harriet project for three years; it was first rumored Viola Davis was going to play Tubman before Erivo was confirmed in 2017. Erivo told OprahMag.com that once she was on board, she was dedicated to making sure Tubman got her time in the spotlight.
"I know that the story of Harriet Tubman has taken years to be told. I think it took three years from when I was cast to actually get it made. That's a long time to wait. And as I was like, I do not want anyone to wait. When I was cast, I was determined for it to be made. I was ready to stick with it through thick and thin to have it made," she said.
Erivo opened up about what it's like to take on Tubman's legacy while giving the story some humanity. "It comes with the story, it comes with the territory, it comes with the responsibility. If it doesn't leave your heart, where is it coming from? In order to truly connect to the story, to have life, it has to come from truth," Erivo said, referencing her process. "So you are taking a look inside yourself and wondering, 'What in my life can give me this emotion? What do I draw on?' And often, it's the most painful parts of your being and the most painful parts of your experiences as a human being that aid the storytelling, which is both cathartic and helpful and useful."
Leslie Odom Jr. as William Still
Odom made a name for himself as the cautious yet determined political hopeful Aaron Burr in Hamilton, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. With his role as William Still, it looks like Odom's found his sweet spot: playing famous people from American history.
What he hopes audiences take away from Harriet? "When I’m playing another person from another time, the first thing I try to do is make sure that I’m not a statue up there—that I’m not a walking breathing book report, but that I’m a real guy with blood pumping through my veins, beating heart, wants, desires, all the things that today we want so clearly. Our pettiness, jealousness, our rashness, our lust, all that stuff we can somehow, with the magic of time passing, we just think of these people as not having any of those things," Odom told OprahMag.com. "That was one of the things that Cynthia and Kasi wanted to bring to Harriet, to make sure it was clear that this was a woman who loved, and who was married, and who was desired, and had desire and all of those things. Real love is what drove her back to make that trip to begin with."
He also highly encourages reading William Still's collection of The Underground Railroad Records: "If the only thing I get to do after this movie is put as many copies of that book into young people’s hands as possible, then it’ll have been worth it because the history of that courage, the legacy of that perseverance, belongs to us, and people need to know that they need to feel that. Young people need to feel that."
Joe Alwyn as Gideon Brodess
Alwyn stars as Gideon Brodess, the main antagonist of the film and a man who inherits the farm where Tubman and her family are enslaved. He eventually goes on a mission to return her to the plantation, dead or alive. Brodess seems conflicted between his duties as a plantation owner and his underlying respect for Tubman, which results in a final stand-off between the two that will have you at the edge of your seat.
You may recognize Alwyn from four major movies he starred in last year: Oscar winner The Favourite, Boy Erased, Mary Queen of Scots, and Operation Finale. He also has a pretty famous girlfriend, Taylor Swift.
Janelle Monáe as Marie Buchanon
Can't stop, won't stop: Monáe is one of the busiest women in entertainment right now. She stars as Marie Buchanon, a Black woman born to freedom in Philadelphia, who takes Tubman in as both a mentor and caretaker. (Yes, the movie kind of has a makeover montage.) Buchanon teaches Tubman how to behave so as not to appear suspicious, and shows her how to use a gun, defending her all the way to the end.
Monáe's most recent album, 2018's Dirty Computer, was nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year. And she's additionally starred in Hidden Figures, Moonlight, and the upcoming second season of Amazon's Homecoming.
Jennifer Nettles as Eliza
Nettles, who first emerged as one-half of country singing group Sugarland, stars as Eliza, the matriarch of the Brodess plantation whose character spirals downward. Eliza has lost everything—her slave escaped, her husband is dead, and her plantation no longer provides the comfortable income it previously did. Things go from bad to worse for Eliza, which only makes her more vile and repugnant in the film.
She told OprahMag.com how she found empathy with a character who is difficult to empathize with. "Eliza, after Edward died, was left in such a space of she had to run this farm she had no idea how. Gideon, her oldest son, was basically useless to her and was more about running around town than he was interested in helping. So the reality is Eliza was a desperate woman, and once I could tap into that part of her and the desperation, well we can all understand and have our own relationship with desperation," Nettles said. "Once I was able to tap into that part of her, I think a lot of the pieces of the puzzle that we didn't know through history about her story fell into place for her as the role and as a character, and as a person in history."
Vanessa Bell Calloway as Rit Ross
Calloway stars as Rit Ross, Harriet Tubman's enslaved mother. Tubman was actually born Araminta "Minty" Ross, but chose Harriet as her freedom name after arriving to Philadelphia. The name was selected based on her love for her mother, who had been told she would be freed by the age of 45, a promise the Brodess family did not uphold.
Calloway is no stranger to the screen. She was first known for playing Princess Imani Izzi, Eddie Murphy's arranged wife, in the 1988 comedy Coming to America. She's had a long, seasoned career, appearing in movies like What's Love Got to Do with It, Crimson Tide, and Cheaper by the Dozen. She played Marian Shields Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother, in Southside with You, and now stars on BounceTV's Saints and Sinners.
Clarke Peters as Ben Ross
Peters stars as Ben Ross, Tubman's father, who provides some comedic relief in the movie, which we won't spoil for you. Peters has worked in Hollywood for over 40 years and audiences will recognize him from The Wire, Treme, and Damages. You can catch him next in the upcoming HBO series His Dark Materials alongside Leslie Odom Jr.'s Hamilton co-star, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Henry Hunter Hall as Walter
The minute young Walter appears on-screen, you know he's a kid up to no good. He displays a bit of an attitude as he helps both Gideon Brodess and Tubman throughout the course of the movie. A newcomer, Hall most recently appeared in Netflix's When They See Us.
Zackary Momoh as John Tubman
Momoh plays John Tubman, Harriet's ex-husband, and their relationship (he's a free Black man, which complicates things) helps the movie find its footing at the beginning. Warning: There's a twist that'll leave you angry.
Momoh is a British-Nigerian actor who has worked steadily in the U.K. and broke out with Netflix's Seven Seconds. Not only is he featured in Harriet, but he's also in the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep alongside Ewan McGregor.
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