Naomi Ackie pulled off quite the impressive leap from stage to screen not long after graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. A British Independent Film Award winner for 2017’s “Lady Macbeth,” scene stealer in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” and BAFTA TV Award winner last year for “The End of the F***ing World,” the British-born actor is just getting started—her next big role is none other than Whitney Houston in the biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” Here, she tells Backstage about her approach to auditions, life advice, and playing Alicia on the new installment of Netflix’s romantic comedy-drama “Master of None,” titled “Moments in Love,” opposite producer-writer-star Lena Waithe and creator-director-star Aziz Ansari.
Tell us about your involvement in “Master of None Presents: Moments in Love.”
I just loved “Master of None” Season 1 and Season 2. And I think artistically, [Ansari] has taken such ownership of his own show, and how he chooses to change it and flip it. [Their Season 2 episode] “Thanksgiving” was, to me, just the most incredible episode ever, and how brave it was just to now move to something completely different. So I was so excited to audition.... They’re just cool people, they make really cool stuff—and not like empty cool, like, really interesting work. And that’s always what I want to focus on.
How did filming this add to your acting skills? Did your theater background prepare you for those lengthy, single-camera shots?
I kind of—I’m trying to, anyway—look at each job as an experiment, like nothing is set in stone. I’m still relatively young and I’m learning as I go along.
[“Moments in Love”] was reminding me of theater a lot. I was like, gosh, I remember having to do this, maintain the energy and you don’t get a break. Different jobs stretch different muscles, and I hadn’t had an [on-camera role] where I had to keep the energy in the air for an extended amount of time. And so the kind of “one-ers,” we would call them were both really hard because it was a sustained situation, but also really easy because once we’ve got it, we can move on.
Aziz also just left a lot of space for us to kind of play with the words...and we’d all worked on it together. As we went through, the script was always changing. Because Aziz was coming up with stuff, I was coming up with stuff, Lena, [co-creator Alan Yang], and it would all come together. We had, especially for the IVF episode [about Alicia’s journey to become pregnant by in vitro fertilization], experts coming in telling us stuff. When Aziz found out through a doctor that there was no insurance policy for single women or queer women who want to have a child on their own—which is insane—that wasn’t originally in the script, and he was just like, we have to put that in. It felt like a duty. So it was just really being perceptive. Aziz always said it’s like jazz, we’re making jazz. You have the strong format, you have a strong foundation, and then you play on the top line.
How did you get your SAG-AFTRA card, in the U.S.?
I don’t have one! I’ve never worked in the States. [Laughs] Because [“Master of None”] filmed in London.... [“Star Wars”] filmed in London too!
So not yet! What about your U.K. Equity card?
I got that when I left drama school when I was 20. It was like the first thing that they tell you to get and you have to apply for, and that was nine years—oh, God, 10 years ago now.
What can you tell us about playing Whitney Houston? Maybe you’ll get the SAG-AFTRA card then?
Yeah, I guess I’ll get it! It’s about Whitney Houston, that’s all I can tell you, I mean, it’s a study of her life. It’s celebrating her music and her talent and telling her story. And yeah, it’s a big one. It’s really big. Again, going back to that thing about each job is an experiment. I’ve never played a real person before. And so I’m really learning as I go along about how I want to approach it and kind of taking artistic license. It’s terrifying and fascinating and exciting all at the same time. And, yeah, it’s going to help me stretch a muscle that I’ve never stretched.
Do you have a worst audition horror story to share?
When I’m stressed, I don’t sometimes absorb information in the way I should. And I remember it was pilot season and I was jumping from one audition to the other in London. I was still doing loads of self-tapes and stuff like that. I get this email for this job and it’s a big one. And I get the sides and I see one page and I’m like, Oh, great. And it’s really awesome.
I get on the train, on my way into Soho, central London. And then I’m looking at the email, at my part...and I flipped through and there are like three more pages. All monologue! And I have half an hour. And in the U.K. [for auditions], you’re off book. Like, I’ve never done an audition with a script in my hand.
I was like, I’ve got half an hour. I promise you—I don’t know how I did it—I managed to memorize three pages of monologue. I don’t know how I did it. It was the longest audition of my life because I just would, like, pause dramatically. And then find the next thought. They must’ve been like, she’s milking it!
8 Line-Memorization Apps Every Actor Should Know About What about the craziest thing you’ve ever done to book a role? Sounds like it was that line memorization!
Yeah! Other crazy things to book a role? Nothing. I mean, I’ve had the weirdest thing with auditions. I will do them and I’m like, of course I didn’t get it. And then I get it. And then there’s things that I’m like, wow, I really nailed it. And then nothing! I’ve had basically way more nos than yeses. But thank God for the yeses.
What’s one performance you think every actor should see, and why?
Please, everyone, watch “I May Destroy You”.... That did something to my heart. It did something, it shifted something. And when there is a show where it came out months ago and I’m still having conversations about that, me and other people? The best shows do that. Everybody watch “I May Destroy You” and Michaela Coel.
And what’s a piece of advice you would give your younger self?
Be patient. Be persistent. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself above all else. Oh, my goodness, we are hard on ourselves, aren’t we?
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