She’s played a Star Wars warrior, a homicidal maniac for The End Of The F***ing World and a pop icon in Whitney Houston to boot, but Naomi Ackie’s latest leading role might be her best yet.
It’s as clumsy cocktail waitress Frida in Hollywood heavyweight Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice – a terrifically clever concept thriller – that allows Ackie to really show her skills. The film starts with Frida getting whisked away on holiday by Slater King, a disgraced Silicon Valley businessman who is taken with her at a function. Initially, King’s lavish lifestyle and the tropical paradise he lives in prove intoxicating – but then things start to go wrong and the troupe of strangers-turned-vacation-BFFs Frida’s fallen in with realise their host may have other, more sinister plans for them…
Ackie’s performance – compelling and multi-layered – is one of the film’s highlights. So we sat down with her for a quick catchup… which turned into a long conversation about her life’s obsession (and one of ours): Beyoncé.
NME: Blink Twice starts with Frida getting whisked away on holiday by a tech billionaire – who would you choose to do this with in real life?
Naomi Ackie: “Beyoncé. And then her extended family and her husband, Jay-Z, of course.”
What kind of holiday are you going on?
“Beyoncé’s a boat girl. It’s a big old one, but it’s not garish, it’s still cute. And then we’re chilling at a really nice villa. The food is on point. The chat is on point. Good music, good vibes.”
Tell us about the villa you filmed at for Blink Twice
“It’s actually a hotel called Hacienda Temozon in Mexico, Yucatan. We lived there for two and a half months. It’s stunning. Then we had to go back to do some reshoots about a year afterwards… It’s got this colonial history which Zoë [Kravitz] was telling us about. It’s an ex-plantation. So she wanted to include that within the story.”
In one of the villa scenes, Frida is in the pool and she chokes on a raspberry…
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“I remember! Zoe wanted me to have this ‘help me’ kind of look. It was so funny as well because she said: ‘You’ve got to choke on the raspberry. Make it look convincing but don’t actually die. OK, action!’”
Frida’s not quite as helpless as she seems though, is she?
“One of my favourite things about Frida is that she’s quite competitive. The raspberry thing is a question of, did she choke on purpose [to draw King’s attention away from another of the girls in the group]? Is she actually as innocent as she’s seeming? Is there something else going on? And that was always fun to play with.”
OK, what’s your go-to album at the moment?
“My ultimate, ultimate go-to is ‘The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill’. I grew up on that. I feel like it’s an anthem for my childhood, but also my adulthood too. The more I listen to it, the more it makes sense to me. I went through a Chaka Khan phase – and who would I be without saying that Beyoncé plays a really big part in my music taste.”
Did you go to the London shows last summer?
“Yes! So this was the thing, right. I’d been asked if I wanted to go and I couldn’t. I was like: ‘I can’t believe I’m gonna miss this!’ I’ve seen every single one of Beyoncé’s tours back to Destiny’s Child when I was a kid – and I had to say no! I was heartbroken… And then at the last minute, it was my nephew’s birthday and I got a call being like, ‘Nay, we’ve got two more tickets – do you wanna go?’ I had to call up my sister and be like, ‘You know me, I would not but it’s Beyoncé’ and she said: ‘Go! Go now before it’s too late!’”
How was the gig?
“I remember leaving my boyfriend’s and just running to Tottenham. It was one of my favourite of her shows. I mean, that woman knows how to captivate an audience. Her craft… oh my god I’m obsessed. I do not want this to become just about Beyoncé but her craft and her attention – I’m in awe. She’s such an inspiration to me.”
Maybe we can set up a meet?
“No, no, no. This is the point: I actually can’t ever meet her. I’d make a fool of myself. I just want to keep it as an idea. Her as an ideology is enough for me. So stay clear of me, Beyoncé!”
‘Blink Twice’ is in cinemas now