Taken from the Autumn 19 issue of Wonderland. Order your copy of the issue now.

Learn the name Jodie Turner-Smith. Set to star in Lena Waithe and Melina Matsoukas’ forthcoming feature Queen & Slim, she’s a newcomer of note. Maybelle Morgan unravels the actor’s astonishing performance in her charged debut.

There is a scene in Queen & Slim, a moment of quiet amidst the panic of a nationwide manhunt, where our protagonists are teetering at the point of no return. On the run, the only direction to go is forward, and career straight off the edge into the unknown. But like a tired exhalation of breath, time slows down for a minute. Queen sits on a bed at her uncle’s house – a short stop-off to figure out their next steps. Her waist-length twists are cut off and her natural hair is coaxed out, cut short and dyed red. It’s a tactical disguise to avoid public identification (their faces are plastered on the front page of every paper and news channel in the country), but above all, this shedding of her old self is an act of survival. And ultimately, that is what Queen & Slim about: black survival, black faith, black hope. New clothes. Destroy the phones. Burn the car. Hit the road. Let’s go.

Penned by Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe and directed by longtime Beyoncé collaborator Melina Matsoukas, the film follows Slim, played by Get Out’s Oscar- nominated Daniel Kaluuya, and Queen — British newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith in her feature film debut — as their lives are irrevocably changed when they are pulled over driving back from an unremarkable first date. Things escalate, a police officer is shot in self-defence, and all of a sudden we are uncomfortably presented with the real mortal danger that faces African-Americans at routine traffic stops every single day. The two must go on the run, because in the age of #BlackLivesMatter, the alternative can be fatal. And unlikely as it is — but as anything that happens in life is unlikely — they fall in love. With nods to Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma & Louise, in the words of Lena Waithe, the film shows “what it looks like to be black and in love while the world is burning all around you”. Turner-Smith, in what will no doubt be her breakout role, is mesmerising: at first stern and stand-offish, but throughout the film we see her unravel in all senses of the word until she is fully open to her fate, and to the love of Slim – something the actor tells me she completely relates to.

But right now, the 32-year-old couldn’t be further from the perilous scenes in the film. She is calling me from sunny LA, her voice chiming down the phone and audibly filled with so much joy that I can’t help but grin into the receiver. “I’ve just had all my family here and I’m so full of love right now. We’ve literally just been eating Jamaican food for the last four days.” She moved to LA a decade ago, from Peterborough, a city two hours outside of London (in case you were wondering, her British accent is very much intact but with tell-tale twangs on certain words, like “beautifulll”). The actor has slowly been fortifying her portfolio ever since. A siren in HBO’s cult vampire hit True Blood. Zayn Malik’s “Pillow Talk” music video. A small part in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon. But then, real credibility came last year with a recurring role as a sculpted genetically engineered space cadet in George R. R. Martin’s Syfy series Nightflyers. It might not be Game of Thrones, but it was enough to make Hollywood sit up and take notice.

And when she caught early production murmurs of Queen & Slim, she set her sights on leading lady; an ambitious feat for someone who had never starred in a feature film. But drive and tenacity are things that Turner-Smith is certainly not short of. She managed to secure an audition with the elusive casting director, then the producers, then the director, and then a chemistry read with Kaluuya later, and we had our Queen. “What you bring into that audition is you, that’s what’s different to what everybody else brings,” she tells me. “A friend of mine always says, the thing about auditioning is that some people come in and you think that person could be a suspect, but then somebody walks in and you’re like, ‘They’ve got blood on their hands.’ I have no idea exactly what it was that I did. But I’m so grateful for that. I really love this character.”

Watching her on-screen, there is something about Turner-Smith that manages to be regal but human and vulnerable at the same time. “What’s important about these two characters is that they’re not magical beings or these mythical creatures,” she explains. “They’re not trying to be heroes either. They are people are literally on the road for their lives in a fucked-up situation because what they have done is something they cannot come back from.”

And when I bring up the politics of the film, that’s when she really becomes animated and incensed. The references are, after all, impossible to ignore. The whole film is charged. Black Panther salutes. Protests. Solange’s “Almeda” languidly trickling on the radio as they drive: “Black faith still can’t be washed away / Not even in that Florida water.” Black prisoners are seen working plantation-style plots of land, monitored by white guards on a horse. Police officers are candidly compared to “slave catchers”. You have to be blind to ignore the blaring indignation.

And this undercurrent trickles all the way down to daily social interactions. At the beginning of the film, Slim turns to Queen, and in an exhausted tone asks: “Why do black people feel the need to be excellent. Why can’t we just be ourselves?” Queen glares at him, but appears troubled. As someone with 10 years in Hollywood, and in an industry where racial inequality, diversity and representation are daily battles, Turner-Smith is all too familiar with this scenario. “I mean honestly, this is something that really touched me, because it just speaks to life experience,” she admits quietly. “We have to work twice as hard for half as much. It’s not just about succeeding as yourself and as a person, it’s about succeeding and being excellent because you are black and because you are a representation of blackness constantly.”

With the character’s arc mirroring her own and much of the movie’s material so close to Turner-Smith’s heart, it is not surprising that the filming process was emotionally tasking on the actor. Scenes would finish and she would still be intensely bawling, long after takes had ended. Thankfully, support came in the form of her fiancé, Dawson’s Creek actor Joshua Jackson, who was a constant presence on set. When I ask her whether she believes in that sort of love-is-the-highest-law, intoxicating, all-consuming romance portrayed in the film, she is coy, but doesn’t miss a beat: “100%. I think at our core we all believe in that love. We’re lucky if we get to see it for even five minutes in our lives you know, but you’d be half-pressed to find a person who didn’t have some story of being so insanely into someone that they did this or that, or risked this or that. We want to be loved and to be seen.” We’ve still got a while yet to wait for Queen & Slim, which will hit cinemas in the UK at the beginning of next year, but Turner-Smith’s star potential has been recognised now and the wheel is turning.

Buzzy indie film company A24 have recruited the actor for their upcoming sci-fi drama After Yang, helmed by Korean-born filmmaker Kogonada, and based on the Alexander Weinstein short story Saying Goodbye to Yang. She steps into the role of a botanical researcher living with her daughter and husband, played by Colin Farrell, in a futuristic world where robotic children are purchased as live-in babysitters. And while it sounds pretty tech-fear Black Mirror-esque to us right about now, Turner-Smith insists that it is really a “gentle and beautiful” story about humans “trying to find love and connection with each other”. She laughs when I commend her for jumping straight from a film with leading man Daniel Kaluuya to equally beloved actor Colin Farrell. “I had a great experience with him,” she gushes. “He’s just such a lovely human.” More importantly, everyone knows now that features in A24 films have gold- stamped industry currency and the buzz-factor to set those involved on an Oscar-winning or nominated trajectory (think Moonlight, Lady Bird and Amy), and Turner-Smith is unwittingly positioning herself to hit the big-time.

When it comes to other future projects, I hit a nerve when I bring up the persistent rumours that she will be playing Grace Jones in an upcoming Marvin Gaye biopic. “You know what, I get asked about this all of the time, and in every single interview!” She laments. “I did that in like 2012 or something. Basically, in 1982, Marvin Gaye won a Grammy for ‘Sexual Healing,’ and he was presented that by Grace Jones and Rick James. I don’t know what happened to the film, but I was such a teeny tiny part in it.” She chuckles all of a sudden, her tone switches to a vocal wink: “What we really need to do now is option something where I can actually play Grace Jones, like for real, and not you know, just be in one scene!” Talk about willing something into existence. But just like her Queen & Slim casting, Jodie Turner-Smith is not someone to leave something up to chance.

Towards the end of our chat, she tells me she has just been singing in her car. When I ask her what song, she giggles and reveals it is “Seasons of Love” from the Rent soundtrack. A song which, in its lyrics, celebrates time, the journey, ups and downs, and how you measure a year of change. It’s a very apt choice for someone who will no doubt remember this whirlwind time in her life as the calm before she is undoubtedly propelled to acclaim on the release of Queen & Slim. “I’ve just had a really amazing year,” her voice glimmers. “I was like, ‘this is the song I want to play right now’, and it just started!”