One Love's Bob Marley Actor Previously Impressed In An Oscar Nominated Film
It's always exciting to watch a talented young actor come into their own via a string of strikingly varied performances. Think of Denzel Washington's 1987 — '89 run of "Cry Freedom," "The Mighty Quinn" and "Glory," or Harrison Ford transforming from a handsome fella on the periphery of classics like "American Graffiti" and "The Conversation" to a full-fledged movie star in "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark." You've seen these guys kicking around for a bit, and they've flashed a bit of potential, but you're absolutely stunned when they sink their choppers into a meaty role. Where has this been, and why did it take so long for a filmmaker to exploit it?
I got that feeling watching Kingsley Ben-Adir work a stirring new variation on Malcolm X in Regina King's "One Night in Miami." Stepping into those incendiary shoes means measuring up to Washington's portrayal of the African-American civil rights leader in Spike Lee's 1992 masterpiece. It's only one of the greatest screen performances of all time. No sweat, right? Ben-Adir plays it that way, burrowing into the wounded soul of a man who knows his inconvenient principles are going to bring him to grief or worse. It's a telescopic view of Malcolm at a particularly contentious moment in time, one that gives us new insight into a fascinatingly enigmatic figure.
Factor in Ben-Adir's standout work in "Peaky Blinders," "The OA" and "Secret Invasion," and you get a sense that this 37-year-old performer is primed for greatness. And the role that catapults him to the A-list just might be his next one.
The blazing life and times of Bob Marley
Expectations are dizzyingly high for Reinaldo Marcus Green's "Bob Marley: One Love," a biopic based on the turbulent life of musician and activist Bob Marley. Ben-Adir gets the honor of being the first actor to portray the reggae legend in a feature film, and I do not envy him this challenge. Marley's progressive activism made him a hero not just in his native Jamaica, but the world at large. He was a prophet who preached resistance against a conservative status quo, and was nearly assassinated for doing so.
Marley died of cancer, which he left untreated due to his Rastafari beliefs, at the age of 36, and like Malcolm, has become more revered in death than he was in life. But whereas Malcolm enflamed the passions of his followers with his articulate, sharply delivered rhetoric, Marley won the hearts of young people by preaching love and experimentation. He was a seeker who seemed forever open to new ideas, which, obviously, was fueled in part by his cannabis indulgence. 42 years after his death, there hasn't been a more influential advocate for the legalization of marijuana than Bob Marley.
Can Kingsley Ben-Adir Catch a Fire?
Does this sound like a wheelhouse role for Ben-Adir? Not at all, which is why I'm so excited to see him in this movie. We're still in the process of figuring out what he can do, and no one has done Marley. Some actors could be intimidated by this, but a performer of Ben-Adir's magnitude gets off on such challenges — and, judging from the trailer, he's more than up for this one.
Ben-Adir projects a probing intelligence that can come off as inviting or threatening. You can see him thinking. His exchanges with Leslie Odom Jr.'s Sam Cooke in "One Night in Miami" are riveting because Malcolm isn't used to losing an argument. He's scrambling a bit. He can't use his intellect to bully Cooke into compliance with his worldview.
Marley was a brilliant man, but he engaged people, and life, in a far different manner. Will Ben-Adir's Marley be a revelation? I've no idea. I just know you couldn't have found a smarter, more gifted actor to play him.