Ruth Negga: Loving is about how fighting racist law shows all voices can be heard

Negga said Loving is a success because people like to be reminded of their humanity
Jennifer Ruby2 February 2017
The Weekender

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Ruth Negga says her latest film, about a couple who defy the ban on interracial marriage in Fifties Virginia, is a success because people like to be reminded of their humanity.

The actress has been nominated for an Oscar for Loving, which tells the story of real-life couple Mildred and Richard Loving. The couple married in Washington DC in 1958 but fought a long legal battle with their home state, Virginia, which sentenced them both to a year in jail for breaking its law on interracial marriage. They eventually won a landmark civil rights Supreme Court case in 1967 which invalidated such laws.

In the film, out tomorrow, Irish actress Negga, 35, plays Mildred opposite Australian star Joel Edgerton as Richard. She said: “I just think people, on the most simple level, want to be reminded of their humanity. People want to be reminded that we’re capable of good things.

“No matter how ordinary you think you are or how extraordinary you might not be — that we all have voices that can and should be heard, and I find their love for one another as human beings just inspiring.”

Negga, who is in the running for the EE Bafta Rising Star award as well as the best actress Oscar, praised her co-star Edgerton, saying: “I think we realised fairly early on that we both had a very strong need to do this couple justice and I think that bonded us together and I certainly felt uber-supported by him. I would definitely credit him with my performance as much as me.

In character: Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in Loving
AP

“I just fell in love with this really sweet, gorgeous couple who just seemed so genuine and human and in love. I really, genuinely thought that this is the greatest love story not yet told. It really is one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever come across.”

Director Jeff Nichols said he realised Negga was perfect for the part minutes after meeting her. “I knew about 10 minutes into the audition, probably,” he said.

Academy Awards Oscar Nominations 2017 - In pictures

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“As soon as she walked in the door with her work and she came in and sat down and her posture shifted and her face shifted and then this voice came out that was Mildred’s.

“I’d been studying two years at the point, writing the script and researching everything I could and then she just walked in the door.

“And it was, from my perspective, fairly effortless. I hadn’t seen all the work she’d done behind the scenes in order to build that.

“But we had a [video] file of the audition and whenever we would go out looking for financing, people would say, ‘And what about Ruth Negga?’ and I’d say, ‘Here she is’, she’s Mildred. And no one denied that.”

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