Award-winning actress Thandiwe Newton got very emotional as she apologized to all of her dark-skinned female contemporaries for receiving preferential treatment in Hollywood.
Newton, 49, who won an Emmy for “Westworld” in 2019 and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role in the 2006 movie Crash, has been wracked with guilt over the years because she believes she hasn’t done enough to represent darker-hued women.
“It’s been very painful to have women who look like my mom feel like I’m not representing them,” she admitted during a promotional interview for God’s Country that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. “That I’m taking from them, taking their men, taking their work, taking their truth.”
Newton, who began using her full African-inspired name Thandiwe during the racial reckoning in 2020, explained that God’s Country is a film that many people who have experienced prejudice in their lives can relate to.
“I realized that my internalized prejudice was stopping me from feeling like I could play this role,” Newton explained. “When it’s precisely that prejudice that I’ve received, it doesn’t matter that it’s from African American women more than anyone else. I received prejudice. Anyone who’s received oppression and prejudice feels this character.”
Newton does add that she has felt the static that she has received from her darker-skinned sisters in the industry and she wanted to apologize to them as well.
“I’ve wanted so desperately to apologize every day to darker-skinned actresses. To say, ‘I’m sorry that I’m the one chosen.’ My mama looks like you.”
Listen to Newton’s poignant testimony below:
