An Interview With the Stars of If Beale Street Could Talk

Nothing in If Beale Street Could Talk is new. Black love isn’t new. White cops wielding their power against marginalized populations isn’t new. Finding strength in vulnerability isn’t new. The many injustices of our justice system aren’t new. James Baldwin published If Beale Street Could Talk in 1974, and yet the combination of all these experiences—the love and the pain—manages to feel new in the hands of Moonlight director Barry Jenkins.

Stephan James and KiKi Layne play Fonny and Tish, two young lovers torn apart by Fonny's false arrest, just as Tish finds out she’s pregnant. The film jumps through narratives, and we watch their love bloom at the same time we watch Tish’s family come together to face the terrible odds of getting Fonny free.

This isn’t James’s first time in a film that deals with such powerful themes. At 25, he’s already played icons Jesse Owens and John Lewis. But this is Layne’s first feature film, and next year she’ll be starring in another adaptation of a seminal work, Richard Wright’s Native Son. The two spoke about the beauty and urgency of Baldwin’s work, how Jenkins translated that to film, and how unfortunately timely and rare the film’s message is.

GQ: Before this, what was your relationship to James Baldwin's work?

Stephan James: I had read The Fire Next Time a long time ago. I think I was more familiar with James as an activist, as a poet, but not necessarily his writing work. After I read the Beale Street screenplay for the first time, I went back and read the novel.

KiKi Layne: I hadn't read any of his novels prior to this. I had just been familiar with all the different interviews and speeches he’d given. Beale Street was the first novel that I actually read, and I read it in preparation for my chemistry read. Since then I've read so much more. I mean, he's definitely one of those authors you read one thing, and then you read everything.

What drew you to this movie? Was it just Baldwin’s story?

Layne: I just love that [Tish is] so vulnerable, and just all this love that's around her. I thought that was so beautiful, how much Tish and Fonny love each other. I just felt like I hadn't seen love like that for black people, where like you see these two young black people who are soul mates. That really drew me in, but then at the same time, because it's James Baldwin, the way that he writes and speaks about all of these different injustices, and how beautifully all of that is interwoven with this really lovely love story... It's amazing to me, the ability to speak about these really painful things but then still be so uplifted and invested in their love. I don't know, I just think it's so powerful how Baldwin and Barry, bringing it to film, were able to communicate these two stories in a way.

James: It was, for me, the prospect of working with James Baldwin and with Barry Jenkins, you know, that marriage. The both of them remind me of each other in a way, where they have this beautiful way of describing love and having an abundance of love amidst tragedy, and do it in such a poetic way. So the prospect of working with them, of working with Regina [King, who plays Tish's mother], it was on, and it was something that was so important, something that I felt was so timely. I looked at Fonny and the ordeal he was going through, and right before finding out about this script I had learned about the Kalief Browder story. For me it was this full-circle moment where I thought to myself, "Wow, James Baldwin had written these words in 1974, but they mean so much now. They probably mean even more now." I took it on almost like a responsibility to be the vessel to tell this type of story.

The story is unfortunately resonant almost 50 years after it was written. Why do you think now was the right time to tell it again?

James: James Baldwin has a way of describing our struggle and what we have always resorted to [in order] to get through those moments. Love is the biggest thing, right? Love and hope is how we've made it through the most tumultuous times, specifically for the African-American experience. You look at a system that has been made to protect you but has failed us time and time again. You have young men who are really having their innocence taken away from them before they get to realize who they even are as people. To me, just that timeliness and timelessness of the story struck me as important.

Layne: I think with social media, people are more aware of these injustices and have more stories and personal experiences and images that are related to a lot of the issues that we're dealing with in the film. I think that helps to make it more powerful in this time, where you’re watching Fonny and you're not just thinking about Fonny. You have all of these other images and men and stories that you could think about that are similar to what he is experiencing in the film. I think that's what makes it really powerful this time, because I think it can be a lot more personal for many more audience members.

Fonny is young and vulnerable. He's an artist, and he's not afraid to show that he's in love and is very in touch with his emotions. We don't often get depictions of young black men being able to be in touch with their emotions.

James: Baldwin puts everything on the page, which is incredible. But you're totally right: There's an aspect of this young man who's an artist and deeply in love and has found his soul mate, this best friend in Tish. For me, it kind of felt revolutionary, like, "Oh, I had never seen black love like this." I don't remember the last time I saw black soul mates on screen. They're more than lovers. You're almost made to believe that that stuff doesn't exist in the African-American community, but it totally does. For me it felt like, "Wow, I get to show people a side of us that you don't really get to see onscreen."

The same goes for the black love with our family dynamics. I think that it's interesting that we show what different versions of black family looks like, that I wasn't really born into the Rivers family but they sort of adopted me in the way that they did. Also, you know, black brotherly love with Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry's character). The fact that us as two young black men are made to feel like we're emasculated, and to just be real and to just be brothers and be vulnerable and talk about how scary something can be...

Tish is also a quiet but strong woman, and we see everything from her perspective. KiKi, what did you learn from playing her?

Layne: I learned that I had a very narrow idea of what strength looks like, and especially what a strong black woman looks like. Doing this film, I learned that Tish is a really, really strong woman. I think coming into it, my idea of strength was more the ability to do things on your own, the ability to be independent. Like, that's what makes you strong. Then in doing this film, I'm like, when you have all this love around you, it's such a powerful thing to fight for that and to rely on your family without shame.

The story is centered around a false rape accusation. Was there any conversation about how to depict that without giving fuel to those who think women are just accusing men of rape left and right?

Layne: I think one of the most powerful things about this film is that people who are in these situations, who historically have just been seen as statistics—like, "Oh, this percentage of black men are wrongfully incarcerated. This percentage of women are sexually abused"—now we see their humanity. We have to see that these are people who have families, and love. With Victoria [the woman who has falsely accused Fonny of rape], for Barry, she wasn't just a victim. Even when Regina's character goes [to confront her], she's not even going there to say, "You did this wrong thing." There's that moment where she reaches out and calls her “daughter.” She’s like, "I don't want to invalidate what happened to you. That's not what I'm here for. In fact, I'm bringing you so much love, because I know you are in need of that as well." I think that's a really powerful thing about that scene and that part of the story. Victoria was never painted as the antagonist in the film, because she's not. She's not.

James: I think it was important that James had never called this woman a liar. He never did. I think that the film and James acknowledge that this thing happened, and we believe you that it happened. It just wasn't Fonny who did it.

The film obviously can’t fit all the detail of the book into two hours, and notably the ending is a little more explicit about what happens to Fonny and Tish. How do you make sure you keep the intention of the book when a lot has to change?

James: It takes 20 hours to read the book. It takes two hours to watch the movie. There's so much in there about Fonny's backstory, about where he came from, about his family, about this time and place in America, for this young love. It's not in the script per se, but it's in the feelings and it's in the emotions. I think if you don't know that sort of backstory, then you're not gonna be able to do the story justice. For me it was a constant process of reminding myself where this kid was coming from and what type of world he was living in.

Layne: I think [the ending] just makes it more real. The book's ending is so open-ended, and you're just not quite sure what happens. With the ending that's in the film, what's nice about it is that it's not this beautiful bow. You see in this ending all of the love that's been present throughout the entire film, and all of the pain that's been present throughout the entire film. I think that's what makes the ending so powerful, is that you are seeing these people, this family, living in all of that still. They're living. So there's this sense of hope that they are making it through this thing, but still so much pain of, "Well, they shouldn't even be in this situation."

What do you hope people take away from the film?

James: I hope the message is hope, honestly, in a time where we could really use that. I think that James [Baldwin] has done an incredible job of describing our struggle and our experience, and showing what it is that we use to get through that. So for me, I think the biggest message is love and hope. You never know the power of that, and how that can get you through the most tumultuous times. It's important not to forget those. As cheesy as it sounds, I think that's the biggest message in the film.

Layne: I think a big thing for me is recognizing these people, their humanity, and recognizing that there are real people caught in these types of situations. This is really happening: Families really are being torn apart by this. Love is really under attack by these injustices and these issues. I want people to start paying more attention to that. When you hear these stories about different cases of police brutality, don't even just make that person just another hashtag, another statistic. That is somebody's father, brother, sister, mother—be more aware of what that means.