Ward & Odubola: Gangs, Masculinity & Blue Story

This text was initially revealed on November 15, 2019, earlier than the movie Blue Story was pulled from some cinema chains following violence at an leisure complicated. As the rain hits the roof of a images studio on an industrial property in South East London, two younger British actors are planning to take over the world. Stephen Odubola is attempting to influence Micheal Ward that he ought to transfer to Los Angeles. Like several good British chat, it begins with the climate, however that is no small discuss.

“You’ll like it. The climate is sweet there and it’s like the house of the movie business, Hollywood’s there. It’s the place you wish to be,” he says.

“I have to go there first,” replies Ward. “I have to go and see if it’s LA or New York. I may not prefer it, however I really feel like I used to be destined to be in America.”

The discuss of future is catching. “I see this movie as being step one there. I do know I’m on an even bigger observe to the place I wish to be. That’s the aim,” says Odubola.

“100%,” says Ward. “It’s each actor’s dream to finish up in Hollywood. I do know for a incontrovertible fact that the whole lot’s going to be coming quickly.”

Once you study that each actors are exactly one movie into their performing careers, it may sound boastful; they’re not solely plotting a transfer to America, however plan to let LA and New York battle it out for his or her affections. However that is no bizarre movie, and these aren’t any bizarre actors.

They’re joint leads in Blue Story, the story of two schoolboy friends, Timmy (Odubola) and Marco (Ward), who reside on council estates in several elements of South London – Deptford and Peckham – and whose lives turn out to be difficult, to say the least, by a postcode conflict between gangs within the two districts.

The movie – additionally a primary for writer-director, Rapman, aka Andrew Onwubolu, who primarily based it on his personal childhood in Deptford – has made good and unhealthy headlines because the pair sat down with FashionBeans. It’s arguably probably the most important British image of 2019, an opinion shared by a number of critics. However then, after violence broke out outdoors a screening of the movie in Birmingham, the movie was pulled by cinema chains Vue and Showcase.

It’s a transfer with little justification and one which has been broadly criticized as an unlimited overreaction, with many questioning whether or not it will have been banned if it wasn’t a movie about black youths.

It’s additionally extensive of the mark as a result of the message of the film couldn’t be farther from glamorizing violence. The movie is narrated with rap, Rapman’s creative signature, giving it a Shakespearean really feel. One play specifically involves thoughts: one that almost all undoubtedly doesn’t make violence enticing.

“We like to explain it as a contemporary Romeo and Juliet,” says Ward, talking to FashionBeans weeks earlier than the discharge. “However as an alternative of a love between a male and a feminine, it’s a love between brothers. The rapping offers it a USP. That is historical past. It’s going to be the primary of its sort and it’s going to do numbers.”

Even earlier than the controversy, these three males had been gatecrashing the bigtime. Rapman made his title with the favored three-part YouTube drama Shiro’s Story earlier than being taken beneath Jay-Z’s Roc Nation umbrella and having this, his first function, launched by Paramount. Our stars have put the work in, too, having caught the performing bug at college and learning the artwork ever since. Every had precisely the identical easy however efficient philosophy: discover one thing they get pleasure from and make a dwelling from it.

For Odubola, 23, it is a display screen debut of any sort, however Ward, 24, has a number of traces on his IMDb web page. After signing for an company, he entered “a type of spiral” of auditions, small roles, brief movies and music movies earlier than touchdown his first TV present, Netflix horror The A-Listing, in 2018.

A 12 months later, he joined the forged of long-running and mightily-acclaimed Prime Boy for its third season. One other Netflix present, it’s set on a fictional housing property in East London, is backed by Drake and stars Kane Robinson (aka Kano) and Ashley Walters (aka Asher D). It offers with crime however is about an excellent deal extra. The identical goes for Blue Story.

There’s crime. There’s violence, too. However at its coronary heart of the movie you’ll discover these age-old themes of loyalty (merited and misplaced), love, pleasure, revenge, hope, friendship, the trials of youth and masculinity. It’s common, but in addition particular to the individuals who reside in that world. Individuals like Odubola, who grew up on a council property in Kennington, additionally in South London.

“It was just like how Timmy grew up,” he says. “It was powerful, man. You get uncovered to a number of issues and, as an adolescent, you’re nonetheless looking for your self as an individual, as a person. I can relate to rather a lot within the story. Sure scenes and emotions like friendship, peer stress, psychological well being states. Not lots of people actually get our tales, so I’m simply completely happy that this displays the lifetime of so many individuals rising up on a council property.

Odubola is extra softly spoken than Ward, however on this topic he speaks with intent and readability. These communities are a big, vibrant and essential a part of British tradition and but are painted negatively by nearly all of each the press and the humanities. See a younger black man within the information and there’s a very good likelihood he’ll be a sufferer or a perpetrator of a criminal offense. Or he may be a ‘cocky’ footballer splashing his cash on ridiculous issues like, say, a pleasant home for his mum.

This impacts public notion and, consequently, the aware or unconscious remedy of anybody who seems to be a sure manner or who lives in a sure place; regardless of how liberal we predict ourselves we’re all vulnerable to bias primarily based on look. Life chances are high subsequently restricted and into the vicious circle they hop. A movie like this might, with no apology for the cliché, make an enormous distinction.

“Once I determined I needed to be an actor, I didn’t actually wish to be in something associated to city life as a result of lots of people don’t painting it correctly. Once I learn the script I noticed an actual story that hasn’t been informed earlier than. I needed to become involved as a result of it’s the reality. That’s all I needed to be concerned in, the reality.”

Ward was born in Jamaica earlier than transferring to the leafy (properly, leafy-ish) East London suburban city of Romford as a toddler. Even he – who can be seen via the identical prejudicial lens as any younger black man – had a skewed view of Blue Story’s world. “The media prefer to demonize these individuals,” he says. “They don’t know what leads them to be in these conditions or the aftermath. I didn’t even know. The script was a revelation to me. I used to assume, ‘What’s fallacious with these individuals?’ However you don’t perceive. That’s why these tales are so necessary: it’s educating me, it’s educating you.”

The violence and risks confronted by, specifically, younger black males in working class areas can’t be ignored. They actually aren’t in Blue Story. Violent acts are central to the plot and, as tends to occur with such acts, issues don’t prove properly.

With the nation in what looks like a fug of melancholy and optimism in brief provide, it makes you surprise if issues can get any higher – if there’s hope on the market for younger individuals surrounded by pressures, prejudice and dangers. The excellent news is, each Ward and Odubola are brimming with hope. Confidence of youth meets confidence in youth.

“A thousand p.c,” says Ward. “I imagine we’re going to a spot the place there are much more alternatives and instructions that folks can see themselves getting in. Individuals used to assume, ‘I wish to be on TV’. Now it may very well be director, cameraman. Individuals from our world don’t notice these alternatives are on the market, however now we will ask associates, ‘Have you ever ever considered being a sound man? A author?”

“There are methods of stimulating somebody’s thoughts to assume wider and I really feel like that is the time for it. There’s extra content material being made, which implies extra alternatives.”

The 2 are actually benefiting from the alternatives afforded by Blue Story. They’ve attended awards exhibits, premieres and now they’re on a photoshoot sporting designer fits.

Ward has been modeling since his teenagers, however they each take a look at residence right here. Slender, athletic, handsome males, items cling on them like they’re supposed to hold. However the garments we’ve put them in at present aren’t their ordinary type. Odubola loves a potent sweatshirt, whereas Ward likes his garments with quantity, “like my persona”.

“One in all my favourite outfits I’ve worn was on the BET Awards,” he says. “It was this pink Casablanca look. Double denim. It was sick, man.”

On the identical time, they’re additionally very conscious that alternatives for black actors to get good roles are restricted, and that this drawback is exacerbated in the event you’re working class. Any success for the celebrities and makers of issues like Blue Story and Prime Boy needs to be cherished.

Not that the humanities or another business ought to bear the burden of attempting to even up society; we now have a authorities that’s supposed to do this. However, as each males level out, a movie like this will result in a larger understanding of points akin to knife crime, which in London reached a nine-year excessive in 2019.

“I really feel just like the movie goes to create consciousness and would possibly change some individuals’s lives,” says Odubola. “There are components that we as filmmakers can’t management. Communities have to step up and create extra alternatives for these younger youngsters as properly.”

Ward provides: “It’s not going to occur in a single day. When the film comes out, possibly 10 individuals out of 1,000 would possibly take this message severely and put down the knives or search for alternatives, however at the very least that’s 10. And in one other 12 months it may very well be one other 10. All these tens would add up. I do know for a incontrovertible fact that we’re going to enhance as a result of we will’t keep it up going like this. It’s ridiculous.

“Masculinity is unquestionably a difficulty. In some conditions, it may all be solved by communication, being mature and simply letting your pleasure go. Lots of males don’t like to do this. That’s comprehensible, however on the identical time, was all of it price it?”

With such performing chops, Ward and Odubola’s confidence in their very own futures is properly positioned. You possibly can solely think about a really sharp upward curve of their profession trajectories and fame ranges as soon as Blue Story, as Ward says, does numbers. After that?

“I wish to emulate Kevin Hart,” says Ward. “He’s impressed me. What he’s achieved, created historical past, that’s what I’m attempting to do. I’m attempting to be a legend. The one manner you could be a legend is in the event you create historical past.”

“I’d love to enter completely different elements of the business, to direct possibly. I’d love to supply a movie, have my title on huge tasks. These are all aspirations that I do know I’ll have the ability to obtain, however all in due time. I see the imaginative and prescient and it’s nearly chasing that.”

Aiming low once more, then. “Speaking about being a legend,” says Odubola, “I don’t know what trigger I’d wish to assist, however ultimately, once I’m at a sure place I’d wish to department out and assist different individuals. In the event you’ve acquired energy and also you’ve acquired a platform you would possibly as properly use it for the benefit of different individuals.”

Confidence is a strong factor: confidence in your self and in others. It may well nudge us ahead when it’s simpler to face nonetheless or retreat. It may well result in nice issues, it will possibly result in silly issues, however it does at the very least make us do these issues.

It’s a very good wager that these males will do issues that can breed confidence in others who, in flip, will do issues that breed confidence and so forth. Then, possibly, a special circle can start.

Blue Story (@BlueStoryMovie, @ParamountUK) is in cinemas now.

Credit

Photographer: Kirk Truman Artwork path: Luke Sampson Stylist: Sarah Ann Murray Stylist assistants: Bethany Parkinson and Jess Gwyneth Grooming: Keshia East