Thuso Mbedu Remembers Bringing <i>The Woman King</i> Home to South Africa

In September, Thuso Mbedu celebrated the release of The Woman King in her home country of South Africa with a few of her co-stars. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and starring Viola Davis and Mbedu, the film about an Agojie general and her formidable army has since been praised by both critics and audiences. Despite getting shut out of the Oscars race, it has garnered widespread recognition from the National Board of Review to the American Film Institute, and contends for NAACP Image Awards and SAG Awards this weekend.

As The Woman King reaches more audiences now that it’s streaming on Netflix, Mbedu looks back on her life-changing trip in an essay for ELLE.com.

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“There is no world in which not going back to South Africa to experience The Woman King with my kinfolk is an option.” This is what I excitedly told myself as I settled in to make the long trek home. We’d had an amazing world premiere in Toronto and my castmates and I had a life-changing week of press in New York. And now it was finally the moment I’d been waiting for since I was first cast as Nawi and learned that The Woman King would be shot in South Africa: I was about to celebrate the film in my home country. Mind you, it’s a 16-hour flight from New York—and 21 hours from L.A.—but it’s a trip I’d make a thousand times over just to relive what it meant to everyone involved.

As a South African, I know first-hand that Africans perpetually feel tossed aside by international media when it comes to film promotion. Numerous reasons have been cited, from the distance travelled to claims that our market just isn’t big enough. But these reasons were not enough to stop me from experiencing this one-in-a-lifetime event on home soil, because this is the type of movie I wish I could’ve seen while growing up. I also knew that the energy the local audiences would bring would simply be unmatched. Our director, Gina Prince-Bythewood, has spoken about how integral it was to shoot the film on the African continent. One of our most memorable shoot days proved her point: we had a huge scene to cover with almost all the actors on set that day. There were a lot of moving parts and the worst thing that could happen did: it started raining. Ushered to the shelter, we waited…and then voices started rising…then the drums joined…soon enough, bodies were in the center of the square, singing and dancing in the rain. The energy was magnetic. Everyone was elated. It was unlike anything our visitors had ever experienced, and it confirmed to our director that she had made the right decision in bringing this story home. When we started rolling again, Gina was able to tap back into that energy in a scene where Izogie, played brilliantly by Lashana Lynch, goes head-to-head with a male soldier, spears piercing through their shoulders, to see who will show pain and weakness first. Izogie won. Everything about that moment was amazing.

And so I landed in Johannesburg, or “Joburg,” “Jozi,” “eGoli”—some of the names locals have given the Concrete Jungle of South Africa. My lips and eyes were crusty, my outfit dusted, my armpits banging, but nothing was as loud as my spirit because I was finally home! My colleague, John Boyega, and his family had arrived hours before me, so he was one of the first few people I texted when I’d touched down. Our castmates Siv Ngesi, Masali Baduza, and Chioma Umeala also joined us in our local adventure. We were all rearing to go. To kick-start the press tour, we had a warrior training session in which we gave our guests a glimpse of the exercises and training regimen we had to endure while filming The Woman King. The bulk of the audience members were fellow creatives, but we also had professional athletes who saluted the cast for what we physically had to go through for over six months. Those in attendance told us that the session made them want to train harder and work even harder on their craft.

From there, we did some school visits where we got to share our experiences with students and give them a look behind the curtain. Their camaraderie, pure joy, screams, and singing reminded me of my time in high school. To end off the first day we visited my alma mater, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) for an intensive panel with drama students. I had not been back there since my graduation ceremony in June 2014, which was a day riddled with mixed emotions. Although I received my certificate, which showed that I graduated with Honours Cum Laude, it was only my sister who could be there with me. She had taken a six-hour bus ride to see me graduate, give me a hug, and hurry back to take another bus back to Pietermaritzburg, where she helped prepare for the funeral of my aunt who had passed away three days earlier. I missed that funeral out of fear of losing my first professional job. My sister was also taking care of our grandmother, who was bedridden after having suffered a stroke earlier in the year. And so there I was…eight years later with a lot of life lived since then.

I was born, raised, and flavored in Pietermaritzburg, and it is there that I discovered my love for acting. It is in the “Sleepy Hollow,” as the city is called, that I made the decision that I was going to be different—even when I wasn’t sure what that meant or what it would look like. So I was excited to make the trip to Kwa-Zulu Natal–the land of my birth—to explore and reflect with my core people. It was great to be able to go back and share my heart with the current pupils at Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School, my old high school. We went to a few radio stations, including one in particular that I felt I needed to visit: Ukhozi FM, the biggest radio station in South Africa with over 7 million listeners daily. I was looking forward to doing an interview entirely in my mother tongue because it is always a good test of how much of the pure language I have retained. My personal highlight was seeing John holding it down. I thought to myself, “Will he sink or swim?” and not only did he swim, but he was freestyling, backstroking, and butterflying throughout the interview. Cheers to you, Mr. Boyega!

I cannot put into words what it was like experiencing The Woman King with the local audience. We had two screenings: one in Johannesburg and one in Durban. In Johannesburg I was dressed by Sasa Thabethe, who made my dress out of placemats, speaking to my heritage in a beautiful and elegant way. In Durban I wore a beautiful black and white Tory Burch dress which I was able to accessorize with traditional beads. Both of the screenings were remarkable—I was stunned seeing people in their crowns and experiencing the indescribable raw energy of the audience. The chanting of “Agojie!” rippled through the cinema as the credits rolled up, sending chills through my body. We did it! I thought. We really, really did it. All the bumps, cuts, bruises, taped limbs were ALL worth it. And the audiences’ reaction proved how valuable it was to not only film in South Africa, but also promote the film there.

I have since had the humbling honor of receiving people’s genuine, heartfelt feedback of how the movie has moved and transformed them. Some come with great, bouncing energy and some come with tears. Others come with a still and small “thank you.” And now, months later with awards season in full swing, the recognition continues with accolades and nominations, from the National Board of Review to the NAACP Image Awards and SAGs. We take none of it for granted.

How do you put the impact you’ve had on others into words? I can’t. But this is why I’m in this business in the first place. I made that decision in December 2005 at the age of 16 after my first big Drama exam. Some audience members had come to me after a performance to thank me for articulating an internal chaos they didn’t have the vocabulary to express until then. They said that it had moved something in them and they had felt seen and heard for the first time. This is what it felt like making The Woman King and bringing it home to South Africa. I hope this is not the last time I feel that way.