Kingsley Ben-Adir can currently be seen portraying late Reggae icon Bob Marley in the biopic One Love. Now that production is over and the cast is promoting the Reinaldo Marcus Green-directed film, Ben-Adir has revealed how the role has affected him.
Ahead of taking on the part, Ben-Adir did admit to having hesitation due to him not being Jamaican, nor a musician. He also stressed the importance of perfecting the Patois language spoken in Marley’s tropical homeland, as it was a challenge to learn for him.
“The only thing Bob and I really have in common is that, you know, he has a white parent and a black parent, and he’s mixed,” Bed-Adir started. “So, I just felt like, yeah, I don’t sing, I don’t dance, I don’t speak Jamaican Patois. I, you know … I just want to make sure everyone knows.”
“There was a real commitment to the authenticity of how Bob spoke,” he continued. “There’s a respect that I have for the language where outside of set when I wasn’t surrounded by Jamaicans who were able to direct and help, I just wanted to keep it sacred, you know? And the language was the one thing that the studio and the family convinced me at the beginning was going to be the most important.”
To prepare himself for the iconic role, he recalled practicing Patois and the guitar in-between filming Barbie, where he played a Ken doll. “I was just finding gaps and moments to start, you know listening to Bob and learning Patois and playing the guitar,” he added. “So as soon as Greta [Gerwig] called cut, I would just kind of run behind a mojo dojo casa house and do some Patois.”
Ben-Adir also admitted that, out of respect for Jamaican language and culture, he would not speak in Patois following filming.
He also recounted taking a little over a year to perfect the Jamaican language, which was taught by a team of seven to eight language experts on set. The 38-year-old also got fully into character donning a replica of Marley’s iconic locs — which took months to recreate.
Bob Marley: One Love premiered in theaters on Feb. 14, and also stars Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Anthony Welsh, Michael Gandolfini, Umi Myers and Nadine Marshall.
Check out Kingsley Ben-Adir speaking on the film above and its official trailer below.
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