For Lashana Lynch, playing singer, philanthropist and cultural icon Rita Marley was always going to be daunting. The British actor has Jamaican roots, and the wife of reggae god Bob Marley is a hero of her mother’s. You could say Lynch, Rita Marley and those expectations got together and felt all right in “Bob Marley: One Love.” The actor created a version of her subject that is living, breathing, feeling … and vividly human.
When contemplating what the role meant to her and her mother, Lynch says, “It’s going to make me cry. … Playing Rita Marley felt like I was playing my mom at my age — in her 30s — having established her sense of self, and very OK with who she is and where life’s going, to tell the truth to anyone who comes her way, but is also extremely elegant whilst being forthright. [My mother] was like, ‘You are playing one of the most powerful women in Jamaica. You don’t need to worry. You’ve got it all in you. You are ready for this.’”
“Bob Marley: One Love,” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard”) and starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, focuses on the years 1976 to 1978 in the music legend’s life, starting with the political-unity concert he wants to promote during a very dangerous time in Jamaica, through the recording of and tour for his landmark album “Exodus.”
“When I read the script, it was an education in how necessary, how imperative Rita was to Bob’s journey,” Lynch says. “I’ve played really strong roles before, but the kind of strength that she has I’ve only recognized in my mom. So when I thought about who I could base some of Rita Marley’s [characteristics] on, my mom came up a lot. My mom and Rita Marley move from the same spiritual core. They’re very giving and very open. They have a freedom in them that’s inherent from somewhere else.
“[Rita and Bob’s son] Ziggy Marley was like, ‘Your mom is so … she’s so sure, you just notice her. You gravitate toward her. Her energy is powerful. She really reminds me of my mom.’”
Though she worked hard to approximate Marley’s manner of speaking and vocal qualities, in researching Marley and spending time with her, Lynch zeroed in the effect Marley had on those around her and how powerfully she could communicate nonverbally. She found, in rehearsal with Ben-Adir, that they could speak without words at times; as a result, she asked for some of her dialogue to be reduced.
“Where she speaks from is so unassuming because it harnesses the young power that we see in the younger Bob and Rita in the film, but also because it doesn’t display everything that she is. It’s very cards-to-chest. Very quiet and still. Elegant and poised,” Lynch says, whose own formidable presence defined memorable appearances in “The Woman King” and “No Time to Die.” She laughs at herself. “As you can imagine, that was a bit of a stretch for me.”
Lashana Lynch and Kingsley Ben-Adir play Rita and Bob Marley in the movie “Bob Marley: One Love.”
(Chiabella James / Paramount Pictures)
But her Rita is not always poised and elegant. She faithfully supports her husband for years, even as he makes decisions that cause friction — including eventually having 11 children by seven women. “Naturally, you are waiting to see a moment where your character has their gear change,” says Lynch, and she didn’t wait in vain. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, the cork comes out of the bottle as Rita lets him have it in the street.
“The argument had to be fire but not a volcano. A volcano would be she’s completely erupted and now there’s nowhere to go, and as an actor it’s just boring, and I would feel like I’d failed at my job,” Lynch says. “It was my favorite scene. I feel like I spoke for a lot of women in that moment, either in her position or who have been in her position or are fearing being in her position.
“Everyone worked hard to ensure that Rita Marley wasn’t reduced to anything. It’s interesting to see a man who is put on a pedestal by the world being taken down to his inner child by the person who knows him the most. That’s what I found most powerful to get to as an actor because,” says Lynch of Rita’s thinking in that blistering exchange, “‘[we are still a family] and I will still help to make you great as an artist, but you are going to hear from me. You’re going to hear from me.’”
Lynch says the thing Rita Marley said to her that most stuck with her was, “‘I knew I was a queen from early on.’ That’s the sentence. Now, from other people, you can take that as overconfidence. I didn’t have to ask [what she meant]. I just knew the confidence, the poise, the ease; it made complete sense when she said that. Of course she knew who she is; that’s why she’s able to be who she is. She knew she was a queen early on. Mic drop.”