Naomi Ackie Breaks Through

I meet Naomi Ackie in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel after her final press engagement for the promotion of her new film, Clayface. She's in New York for another three hours before she flies back to her home in London for a much-needed break after the press run. Ackie has made five films in one year. It is this fact, alongside her ultra-kind, professional, and friendly attitude, that tips you off to her growing star power. We have two of those hours to shoot. Up in her room, in full glam, she excitedly tries on looks like we're two friends playing dress up. If her love of fashion wasn't clear after a series of home-run press looks for Clayface—she wore Gucci and Dilara Findikoglu runway pieces, and CFDA award winners Colleen Allen and Rachel Scott’s Diotima-—her gravitation towards the more off-beat pieces on my rack confirmed it as she skipped over simple slip dresses and gunned for a textured Diotima skirt set.

Ackie's love for fashion has always been a part of her. Her mother was a seamstress in her free time and taught Ackie how to sew her own clothes. She still owns her childhood sewing machine, and before she committed to a career in acting, she was torn between drama and fashion design in college. Eventually, it became clear that acting was her path, but fashion still plays a supporting role.

The following week over Zoom, she's cozy in a hoodie, bare-faced, and taking our call from her sofa. You could be easily fooled into the impression that this is someone who is not experiencing immense demands in her job at the moment, with how openly and candidly she speaks. But this is certainly not the case for Ackie, who has been honing her skills for the past 11 years to get to this point. Two years into her acting career, she was already winning the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 2017 for her breakout role in Lady Macbeth. Still, it takes a long time to gain serious momentum in Hollywood, and it’s now, several years later, that Ackie has had her biggest year yet. In the past year, she's starred in Clayface—the new body horror film from the DC Universe—I Love Boosters, Shelter, and two other projects that are still in post production. She has firmly shaken off any remnants of imposter syndrome. “I don't have that anymore," she says. “I actually just feel like I've found my little corner and I love what I do.”

This sense of belonging is something that you can innately sense. It's a gentle confidence, a knowing that she has the skills and dedication to her craft to take up space in an industry that demands a sense of self-possession to thrive. As we discuss boundaries and advocating for herself, it became clear that this sense of self is well rooted in her nature. “The ideal thing is that everyone who is trying to tell a story has the space and time and respect to do their job to their highest potential," she says. "That's the real thing I'm protecting.”

Ahead, I speak with Ackie about Clayface, romance, hobbies, and the most challenging thing about breaking into Hollywood.

Tell me about Clayface.

“It's done so well. It's a body horror and a gothic romance. It's in the DC universe. It's great because it's a really strong genre, but manages to flip between many different tones all the way through. There's this really hilarious, almost campy element in some parts of it, a knowingness to it that is so charming that people are really responding to, but it's also really heartfelt and super tragic, especially the ending. So, it was huge fun making it. We all felt like we were making something that we were really proud of, and to have it be responded to so well, is just really, really cool.”

You did Blink Twice, which is a thriller. But was this your first time doing something more grotesque?

“Oh yeah. This is my first time in the body horror space. With horror as well, there's horror and thriller, and there's so many sub-genres beneath that. Body horror is the stuff that I really enjoy watching and reading. So, it felt really cool to try a different type of horror. And it was hilarious. I mean, on set you're surrounded by blood and guts and stuff, but none of it's real. And it's really funny to be around that stuff knowing that it's not real and you get to play pretend for a while and then go home to your safe bed.”

Is there still a lot of adrenaline when shooting the scarier scenes because your body doesn’t know the difference between real and fake, even if your mind does?

“Yes! Definitely. The film is quite a slow burn. My character kind of stays on the outskirts of the horror for quite a while. She's inhabiting the kind of gothic romance space while this horrible stuff is going on outside of her view. But I've definitely experienced that rush of adrenaline when doing horror films. I just filmed another one this summer, and that was just right in the horror space. It's terrifying, and it's a lot of running and screaming and stuff. And man, you are exhausted by the end of the day, but it is also just so fun trying to figure out how to do it and make it believable.”

Your character in Clayface, Caitlyn, is involved in a love triangle of sorts. Are you a romantic person?

“I was talking to some people the other day about it… I think I'm not romantic, but they were saying maybe I am even though big displays of romance don't excite me. I really like ordinary romance, like cuddling on the couch while watching TV. So maybe I am romantic. I just like normal daily expressions of how a normal life with someone can be romantic.”

So you're a lowkey lover girl…I know you're also a fashion girl. Did you have a plan or a direction that you wanted to go with your looks for this press tour?

“I think it was a mixture of the two. Me and Nicky [Yates] have been working together now for nearly 10 years, so we know each other really well. We've really evolved over time, and I've embraced method dressing. It's just a fun way of expressing what the film is about in a different way, but we never want to take it too on the nose.

With this one, there was this sense of the kind of grime of Gotham; it's cool, it's gothic, it's a lot of black. It's also got a film noir vibe to it. So, Nikki was finding incredible pieces that inhabited that space. We had so much fun doing the fittings, between the Gucci dress I wore for the LA premiere and the Dilara look I wore for the London premiere. It was expressing a similar theme, but in such different ways."

You've done five films within the past year. What's it been like to go into so many different worlds in such a relatively short amount of time?

“It's so funny because you say yes to all the jobs because you are so attracted to the script and you tend not to think about how your body is going to react to doing so many projects. Not to make it sound deep or anything, but the rigmarole of a normal workday on a film set is not an easy thing.

It can be quite intense depending on what you're doing on that day. And I found myself in this great position in that these parts all really had a lot of depth, and they were also really varied, and I was playing quite large roles in all of them. So, it can feel like whiplash sometimes; it makes time go really fast in a way that I don't enjoy, actually. You blink and suddenly a whole year has gone by and you're like, ‘What?’

I'm really lucky that all these years of trying to get to that position have come to fruition. So I don't want to complain about it, but you definitely look back on the last year, and you're like, ‘Whoa, that was a lot. That was a lot.’”

How do you advocate for yourself when you're stretched thin on those sets?

“Advocating for yourself is part of any job, and just as a human being, I think it's such an important skill to learn. I do it now quite easily because I found the right balance between not being cruel or mean, but being honest and clear. If I feel like physically I'm not feeling safe, then I'll happily say it. And I think partially it comes from the experience of a set—what a set is, and how a good set works, and how there are some things that are just going to be hard. It's asking: how are we working and communicating in that time to make sure it's as efficient as possible? And if those things aren't efficient, then how do we do that? What problems can we solve from my end or from whoever's end to do that? It's just like anything; it's good communication, just making sure that people feel respected and heard, but also that what you have to say is also heard.”

Was there ever a time you struggled to speak up for yourself?

“Maybe when I was in my early 20s, I would worry about that kind of stuff. Now I just go, ‘Well, I'm asking to be communicated with. And if someone wants to claim that that is diva-esque behavior, then I'm very happy to be called a diva.’ 

A lot of that is trying to bank on other people’s view, and where I'm at in my life right now, how other people view me, especially if I know that I'm coming from a really grounded place, it's really none of my business. I don't really care. I want to have a healthy workspace, and I want to be working in a space that feels safe, not just for myself, but for the crew, the director, and for the producers. And if I'm advocating for myself, it's highly likely that I'm advocating for other people as well.”

How are you feeling after so many projects? Are you taking a break?

“I was just chatting with my new therapist about this. You can't really take a break when you're self-employed. During my off-duty time, I'm looking for projects, and I am trying to push ahead with some of the projects I've come up with myself. And ideally I'll be at home for a while until the next thing happens. But I said that last year and then I got Clayface. So you never really know with these things.”

What do you do when you have time off?

“Just before this [call], I was watching Love is Blind. So a lot of reality TV, and I’m slowly starting to get back into my normal workout routine. I read books, I take baths, I have walks, I go out to eat, and I try and find a hobby. I usually fail. It's just a nice slow-down time where I'll take a few meetings, have some meetings with really cool people in the industry. So I'm kind of three-quarters just relaxing and taking the day as it comes.”

Were you raised in a creative household?

"In a way, but not officially. My parents weren't in this industry or any creative industry for work. They worked in the public sector. My dad worked for TfL, my mom worked for NHS, but we were a creative household. My dad was always singing. He's got a really great voice, and my mom was a seamstress in her spare time, so she was teaching me how to sew things and knit things. I spent my youth surrounded by a lot of creative talk, and I think that really engendered me to seek out what else I could make. I just always wanted to make things with my hands or write stories or sing songs, and that was always really encouraged in my household. So, even though we weren't professionally creative, I think it was something that was just naturally in the family.”

Was it always acting?

“It could have been clothes making for sure. At college, my mom forced me to do an academic course, and then I was allowed two creatives. So, I had English as my academic thing just in case, and then I did drama and textiles & fashion. So it was a toss-up between the two, but as I started to study them, I realized that acting was the thing that I enjoyed more. It came more naturally than learning how to make clothes and then design them. It was so complicated in a way that didn't come to me as easily, but I've always had a love for it. A few weeks ago, actually, I had some time off, and I went to Shepherd’s Bush. They've got an insane fabric road where they just sell loads of gorgeous fabric. I bought some, and I made my first dress. It's so ugly, but I made it, and it kind of doesn't fit, and I don't know how to do darts yet, but it was a good first attempt.”

I love that you are picking up hobbies in your downtime. We don't have hobbies anymore! We're not honing skills.

“Exactly. It was a really fun day. Now that I have some time off and I'm starting to wind down, I've got extra fabric upstairs, and I've had my sewing machine since I was a kid, so I'm going to go back into it and try and make something else. I made this awful T-shirt out of old denim that is, again, awful, but it's not really about having something actually to wear. It's the process of making something that no one else has to see. 

Tell me about what's been the most challenging thing for you in the past year.

“It's hard to find calm in it because you are constantly thinking about the next thing. Especially when you are looking ahead at a lot of projects coming up, while you are working on one thing, you're preparing for the next thing. It's not the ideal creative space to be in. It can sometimes feel like you are on the conveyor belt. You're just being passed from one hand to the next, without a lot of rest time in between. Sometimes it can feel like you're bringing the last project with you to the next one. And look, rest is a very important thing in life, full stop. But with the creative stuff, I feel like rest is really, really important to separate yourself and give your brain some space.”

What’s your favorite thing about work right now?

“I feel very confident in my ability, and it's a really nice thing to walk into spaces and feel like I belong there, that I understand how it works, and that I can relax into it. And that's about nearly 11 years now of working in this industry, and it's taken that long for me to really feel very secure. And that doesn't guarantee that I'll be working for the rest of my life, I'm still a jobbing actor. I still audition. I still have to do meetings, and I'm happy to, but feeling like I belong in this industry is a really powerful thing because it's kind of all I've ever wanted, but it's quite a rocky road to get to that place.”

Photography: Lucian Clifforth
Styling: Ella O'Keeffe
Fashion Assistant: McKenzie Stoute
Hair: Ursula Stephen
Makeup: Daniel Martin