On paper,Lashana Lynchdoesn’t get a lot to do as Rita Marley, the significant other ofBob Marley(Kingsley Ben-Adir) inBob Marley: One Love. She’s fulfilling the “dutiful wife/girlfriend” archetype that populates so many music biopics about famous male musicians. Whether it’sMaestro,Walk the Line,Elvis, or so many others, such roles typically only afford ladies the chance to portray women engaging in heightened arguments with their spouse before later giving some inspirational speech about how their man is the only one who can “change the world.” In the hands of Lynch, though, Rita Marley shows sparkles of life crammed with way more depth than anything that’s on the page.
Take a scene where Rita Marley hears a new song jammed with yearning from her husband, which inspires this character to note “I always liked your love songs best.” In that phrase, Lynch injects years of experience and wistfulness, as Rita briefly taps back into the earliest days of this romantic relationship. A later scene where Rita Marley tells her husband “sometimes, the messenger has to become the message” seesLynch portraying the flashes of emotional vulnerability in this character with such power. The script forBob Marley: One Lovetreats Rita Marley as just an archetype every music biopic must deliver, but Lynch treats this figure like a three-dimensional human being. What else would you expect from a woman who’s quickly become one of our best modern actors? In just a span of a few years,Lynch has solidified her status as a can’t-miss performer across a wide array of motion pictures.
Bob Marley: One Love
A look at the life of legendary reggae musician Bob Marley.
Lashana Lynch Can Play Anything You Ask Her To
One element that’s become especially impressive about Lashana Lynch in her still-nascent film career is how much versatility she’s demonstrated as a performer.In the modern world, promising young actors (likeMichael FassbenderorEddie Redmayne) can quickly whittle away their potential by becoming too entrenched in one franchise that eats away at both their schedule and public reputation. By contrast, Lynch hasn’t been anchored to headlining one Marvel, DC, or Hasbro title a year. This has allowed her more time to inhabit a wide variety of titles, big and small. Even in the range of blockbusters, Lynch’s creative exploits have stretched fromCaptain Marvelto the James Bond titleNo Time to Dierather than being stuck in just one corner of the blockbuster landscape.
That career move opened the door for Lynch to take on movies likeThe Woman King, where she takes on the role of Izogie, an experienced Agojie warrior with endless skills in combat. Early on in the movie, directorGina Prince-bythewoodcaptures Izogie encountering a young girl who can’t help but break the rules and stare at the Agojie. Izogie’s response to this child is not to reprimand her, but rather to give the youngster playful encouragement. Immediately, Lynch exudes believability in one of the best personality types you can find in an action movie: the master warrior with a kind heart.
There’s a warmth to Lynch’s performance that makes her budding friendship with newbie Agojie warrior Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) extra compelling. It’s also a quality that ensures Izogie’s commanding presence on the battlefield has extra thrilling layers to it. Like the best actors, Lynch tackles conceptually paradoxical figures with such effortlessness that the contradictions feel natural. This gift makes Izogie a standout character in theacclaimedThe Woman King.She’s the scene-stealing figure that rivets even the most cynical moviegoer. Lynch’s impressive work here also ensures that Izogie is a vastly different creation than her previous major foray into action movie cinema, playing new 007 agent Nomi inNo Time to Die.
Whereas Izogie exudes compassion while also being a ruthless warrior, Nomi is a straightforward individual with no time for intimate emotions. She only expresses dubiousness about James Bond’s (Daniel Craig) return to the realm of espionage andNo Time to Dieonly emphasizes her as a character through her time spent in the field working for MI6. While some actors just regurgitate the same persona over and over in their action film exploits (sometimes to incredibly entertaining results),Lynch nailed wildly different action movie personalities across Nomi and Izogie. Even her physicality in the fight scenes ofThe Woman KingandNo Time to Dieare wildly different. Izogie’s fighting style emphasizes coordinating with her Agojie comrades, while Nomi dispatches adversaries in a more self-contained style. Just in these two roles alone, Lashana Lynch demonstrated a remarkable level of versatility.
‘ear for eye’ Let Lashana Lynch Flourish As An Actor
If there’s any production that exemplifies the talents of Lashana Lynch, it’s Debbie Tucker Green’s 2023 directorial effortear for eye. An adaptation of Green’s 2018 play of the same name,ear for eyefollows a variety of Black characters scattered across America and the U.K. navigating various parts of the modern world. The characters on-screen talk in such a distinctive, sharply defined manner that’s simultaneously detached from how actual people talk and yet perfectly captures deep intimate human emotions that are often so difficult to put into words. Accentuating the distinctiveness of this feature,ear for eyeputs its actors against impressionistic backdrops. The characters inear for eyeare simultaneously nowhere specific and yet communicate feelings that are so singular. It’s a masterful combination that renders this feature one of the boldest motion pictures of recent years.
Lashana Lynch Would Have Turned Down ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Without This Key Element
The actress also shares which previous role was life-changing and why Kingsley Ben-Adir was crucial to nailing their onscreen relationship.
Lynch is the centerpiece of one of the greatest sequences inear for eye,depicting a college student talking to a white professor about her concerns with his rhetoric and approach to race. The conversation immediately becomes confrontational as the professor tries to deflect and engages in accusatory language against his younger counterpart. Throughout this scene, Lynch devastatingly but quietly depicts a person being forced to reveal very vulnerable parts of themselves (such as their autism) just to try and see if her conversation partner will extend her any empathy. As the interiority of her unnamed character becomes more apparent, so too does her frustration with the authority figure in front of her. Lynch lends equal levels of conviction to the vulnerabilities and cathartic indignation of this woman.
The innately stripped-down presentation ofear for eye(which has actors inhabiting sparsely decorated sets in what looks to be a black box theater) means that the gaze of the audience is always focused just on Lynch. This entire sequence lives or dies based on her, there’s nowhere else for the camera to cut to.She ends up flourishing under those pressures, delivering some of the most striking line deliveries in all ofear for eyeand masterfully conjuring up such a nuanced persona for her character in a limited amount of screentime. Lynch doesn’t have to be on-camera long for viewers to understand the rich unspoken history of this college student. Just the way she composes her body or the ways her eyes flicker indicates that she’s had confrontational conversations like this before. A uniquely intimate cinematic aesthetic likeear for eyesolidified the gifts of Lashana Lynch as an actor.
Lashana Lynch Once Again Proved Her Versatility With ‘Matilda: the Musical’
Impressively, Lynch’s work inear for eyedropped in North America just a few months after the worldwide premiere of Netflix’sMatilda: The Musical, in which this same actor handled the role of Miss Honey. Going from college student to potential surrogate mother figure, Lynch imbued Honey with all the warmth and tangible kindness this character requires. Just as Lynch effortlessly molded herself to the unique qualities ofear for eye, so too did she easily capture the qualities of being the one “good adult” in the world of aRoald Dahlstory.
Lynch’s versatility is so apparent that, amusingly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps finding ways to bring her back even after herCaptain Marvelcharacter, Maria Rambeau, died off-screen inWandaVision. Thanks to cameos inDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of MadnessandThe Marvels,this expansive superhero franchise keeps making use of Lynch’s talents. Thankfully, though, her time as an on-screen actor isn’t just confined to those blockbusters.Whether it’sThe Woman King,ear for eye, orBob Marley: One Love, Lashana Lynch is everywhere demonstrating why she’s one of the best actors around right now.
Bob Marley: One Loveis now available to watch on Paramount+ in the U.S.
