'Black Canary was just so second nature to me. I just inherently understood her.'
Jurnee Smollett-Bell has been a fan of martial-arts superhero Black Canary for years; the actress has even used the DC Comics character as her avatar when playing video games. This month, the 33-year-old Angeleno takes Black Canary to the big screen in, with Margot Robbie reprising her role as Harley Quinn. Below, she talks about the trip that changed her life, how she's seen Hollywood shift, and owning her power.
I went to my manager and my agents and said, ‘Listen, Misha said I should go for it and that there's a chance they actually won't be shooting during that time.’ I did a self-tape in Chicago while I was shooting the pilot forthey weren't telling us what the character was, but we had assumed it was Black Canary. I knew her fromthe video game, which I played once in a while with my husband.
This trip changed my life. What I saw on the ground was the power of art. I saw how my mentors could use their art to manifest tangible change. We would go to these small villages and walk inside a hut where the roof was made of tin. The local people there were so beautiful and so kind and so humble. You had children who were raising their siblings. Children who had lost both parents to HIV/AIDS. They were walking five kilometers one way, five kilometers back, just to get water.
Interview edited for length and clarity. A version of this interview originally appeared in the February 2020 issue ofMegan DiTrolio the the associate editor at Marie Claire where she covers books, culture, fashion and career.
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