It’s difficult for Amma Asante to assess how far she’s come, because she just doesn’t have the relevant role models. “I haven’t had the example,” says the director, “of someone who is both black, British and female to look to, in terms of the career I’d like to have. It’s thwarted my sense of expectation.”
Still, in the decade between making her first film, 2004’s Bafta-winning A Way of Life, and her second, the 18th-century-set drama Belle, Asante became increasingly aware of male counterparts getting more chances, being more likely to be award-nominated, and consequently getting even more opportunities and even bigger budgets.
“All of that has an impact on how your career develops,” she says, “but I made a promise to myself to try to catch up – and made three films in five years. Which was exhausting.” This was the period of A United Kingdom, starring David Oyelowo as the real-life first president of Botswana, and second world war teen romance Where Hands Touch. More recently, she made the move into US television, directing episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale. And then there’s Mrs America, the miniseries about to launch on BBC Two.
Mrs America stars Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, the avowed anti-feminist who led a campaign in the 1970s to block the Equal Rights Amendment. But what might have been a straightforward biopic of Schlafly has been expanded into a wider and richer story about other women from the era, representing a broad spectrum of views and experiences.
Take Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to Congress, and a candidate for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. “Her courage and vision were unparalleled,” says Asante, who seized at the chance to fully credit this lesser known figure, signing up for the episode focused on Chisholm, who is played by Uzo Aduba. “On the face of it, Chisholm failed. But without her, I don’t think there could have been an Obama. I don’t think Hillary Clinton could have thought about running.”
Early episodes have a fixed camerawork style for Schlafly’s scenes, which contrast with the hand-held style used for the likes of Gloria Steinem, played by Rose Byrne. Politically, Chisholm would fit in the Steinem camp, but Asante chose not to take the looser approach. “She was at once very traditional – the way she dressed was like Thatcher – while at the same time she was pushing us to evolve. I wanted a combination of styles for her. It’s really important that, as people of colour, we can be many things at once, like any other person.”
Chisholm is finally being honoured with a monument, due to be installed in Brooklyn by the end of the year. She’s just one of a huge cast of equally nuanced characters: Asante also directs the episode focusing on Betty Friedan, the mother of second wave feminism, played by Tracey Ullman. The show not only has the scope of The Wire, the period detail of Mad Men, and the power-brokering of The West Wing, it also manages to feel very relevant to the Black Lives Matter movement and progressive politics in general. Asante didn’t balk at the challenge, though, perhaps because her films – mostly period dramas exploring race, class and gender – have been such a strong preparation.
Her next, The Billion Dollar Spy, tells the true story of Soviet-born CIA informant Adolf Tolkachev. This might seem a departure, she says, “in the sense that it’s two white men – not that I haven’t directed white men before”. But, actually, it’s a continuation of underlying themes: “A United Kingdom is about what happens when you love your country but you don’t love the people running it, in that case the empire. And this is about what happens when you love your country but not the people running it, and they come from the same place.”
The interplay of factors that lead people to believe what they believe and do what they do is what interests Asante. It’s also what keeps drawing her to the past: “History for me is the parent of society. We don’t necessarily have to think everything they did was right, but we find ways to move forward from who they were.”
One move forward would be more diversity in film and TV. Asante agrees “absolutely” with recent comments by Killing Eve star Sandra Oh, suggesting Britain is behind the US in this respect. “That’s why I say being British is a massive element in all of this.” But despite her views, certain labels don’t sit easily. “I [often] say I’m not an activist, I’m just a storyteller.”
She mentions the star of Belle: “Gugu Mbatha-Raw said to me the other day, ‘Really? You really don’t think you’re an activist?’ One thing I will say is I’m grateful for the work feminists have done and I’m really, really grateful for Shirley Chisholm. I’ve no doubt I’m able to stand on an American set today because she existed.”
Mrs America starts on BBC Two on Wednesday at 9pm. Amma Asante’s episodes air as a double bill on 15 July.
