“On every show, nothing’s changed,” Andoh said about the challenge of sets not adjusting their lighting for her skin tone
Adjoa Andoh is explaining why she doesn’t feel “empowered” in her career yet.
In a recent episode of the Stirring it Up podcast, Andoh opened up about playing Lady Danbury on the hit Netflix shows Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte. She said that while she has been in the industry for many years, she still has not reached the point where she feels fully comfortable in her roles.
“The continuing conversation about lighting Black skin,” Andoh began. “On every show, nothing’s changed.”
Andoh said that while the awareness surrounding the difference in lighting various skin tones is “getting better,” there is a sense of responsibility that Black actors have to advocate for themselves that white actors do not have to deal with.
“I want to stay in character,” Andoh said. “I just want to come on and be Lady Danbury and do what she’s got to do and be totally engaged with that.”
One of the podcast’s hosts added that if “Nicole Kidman walks onto the set and the lighting was for Black skin, she’d go, ‘What’s with the weird lighting?” They went on to say it would be fixed without a question, and “no one would think she was being picky.”
While Andoh did admit she sometimes is empowered being able to take a stand for the Black actors on Bridgerton, she doesn’t always feel that way.
“I will now go: ‘Am I blond?’” she said. “But I hate doing it because a bit of me is like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to make a fuss.’”
She continued, “When people say we’re chippy or we’re being militant or we’re all that stuff, what I want to say is, ‘I’m just a human being and I just want to do the gift that I ‘m blessed with. I want to do it in a free way, like I see many other people doing.’”
Andoh also explained that she wonders every time she gets a role — or doesn’t — if it has to do with the color of her skin. This is “very tiring and very distracting,” she went on to say because she said being Black shouldn’t carry the weight it does in the entertainment industry.
“I don’t want to think about it,” she said. “I just want to get the job because I’m great, or not get the job because I’m s—.”
Bridgerton has become one of Netflix’s top 10 most popular English-language shows of all time, with a fourth season coming following the massive following the first three seasons cultivated. Creator Shonda Rhimes told Variety she is planning already far ahead.
“I do have a very specific plan of where we go each season — which one is which. Because you really have to start seeding in the other siblings, and what’s going on with them, to push them to the next season,” Rhimes said , adding that they’ve planned through “season 6 or maybe 7” already.
Seasons 1-3 of Bridgerton — as well as its spinoff, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story — are now streaming on Netflix.
