Kingsley Ben-Adir says he was scared to play Bob Marley in the “Bob Marley: One Love” biopic by Paramount Pictures.
Speaking with UK TV host Graham Norton in an interview last Saturday (January 19), he said, “Looking back, it was fear. I just didn’t know how scared I was. When I am scared, I just work, so I was just kinda working.”
The trained British actor said he got support to play Jamaica’s most prominent star from the Marley family from the start, but on the first day of filming, the jitters would not go away.
“They supported the decisions, but I guess the lead-up to that first day of shooting, half the family is behind the monar, and Ziggy is behind the DLP, and Neville Garrick, Bob’s close friend who was there at the time, is rolling a spliff and having his breakfast behind the DLP, and so it was pretty like, you know,” he says, making a nervous hand gesture.
“I think after lunch it kinda dropped,” he recalled. When Ben-Adir played Malcolm X in the movie “One Night In Miami,” he said he had “not time to be scared” playing the muslim leader.
He said it was Marley’s graphic designer and friend Neville Garrick who helped him to gather information about who Bob really was behind the public persona of being an icon and hero for reggae music. “Neville Garrick, who is the historical advisor, was in the room with Bob when he was composing the album, writing down the lyrics to the songs, and Neville was there on the set. So if there were ever any questions, that’s who you would ask, and every Sunday Neville and I would jump on the phone and would just walk and talk for a couple of hours. Bob was such an icon and he’s a hero to so many people, the conversations were about trying to find out who he was as a man and a father, and that’s what I discovered – that Bob really struggled through that time. He was going through a lot. The movie is about the creation of the album,” Ben-Adir says.
Kingston, Jamaica is set to host the first premiere event at the Carib Theater, just miles from where Bob Marley lived in Trench Town today January 23, 2024. Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt is one of the Executive producers of the film along with Richard Hewitt, Orly Marley, Matt Solodky. The star studded red carpet and live stage show event in Kingston will set the tone for four worldwide premieres ahead of the February 14 global theatre release.
Most of the cast for the movie as well as Marley family members are set to be in Jamaica for the event before making their way to Paris on January 28, London on January 30 and then the final premiere in Los Angeles on February 6, two days after the 66th Annual Grammy Awards which Julian Marley’s Colors Of Royal is nominated for Best Reggae Album.
British Academy Award winning actor James Norton plays Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records and the impresario who is most credited with bringing Marley’s brand and music to the world. Blackwell took Marley to the UK in the months following his assassination attempt in 1976 where they recorded the albums “Exodus” and “Kaya,” the period in which the movie covered.
In Jamaican at the time political tribalism ran rampant and gangsters Claudie Massop and Bucky Marshall are featured in the movie played by actors Brian Todd Boucher and Cornelius Grant. The late 70s leaders of Jamaica’s major political parties: Edward Seaga of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Michael Manley of the Peoples National Party (PNP) are also in the film.
Ziggy Marley said the film will be a history lesson for the youths in an interview with Irie FM after he had wrapped filming early last year.
“Bucky and Claudie deh deh. It’s a history lesson fi a lot a di youths dem now inna Jamaica. Them will get a likkle history… Manley and Seaga deh inna it. Everything deh inna it from dat period a time,” the multi- Grammy award winning singer explained.
Ziggy summarizes the Tuff Gong Pictures collaboration as a quick glimpse into Bob’s life. “They have been trying to make a movie for many years about me father, it’s a different way to spread massage of love and unity, this is a good way to reach more people and even. younger generation and give them a quick glimpse into Bob’s life,” he said.
