Antebellum's GabbySidibe explains how a trip to a slave castle informed her approach to her role in the film. Watch our full 'Around The Table' interview here:
, Lily Cowles, and Tongayi Chirisa, to share how they approached making the intense film.
While the film starts with Monáe playing an enslaved person named Eden being punished for trying to escape the Civil War-era plantation setting, it steadily reveals that everything is not what it seems. "Once I go to that twist, I was like 'I have to finish this, and I have to finish this right now,'" shares the star, explaining how Bush and Renz's script won her over.
"I saw all of these pillars in our Black community, and the thing that I always want to do is honor Black women, and Black women's voices, and make sure that I'm humanizing Black women onscreen," states Monáe. "And I thought this was a great opportunity to continue the conversation of what it's like to be a Black woman that has to carry the load of dismantling white supremacy every single day.
Sidibe was drawn to the film because of how the script invoked the feeling she'd had standing in a slave castle during a recent trip to Ghana: "The dehumanization of this cave is where they want us to be. And it all still stands because it was supposed to still stand, because that's where I'm supposed to be, I'm still supposed to be enslaved."
"I felt like, 'Oh no, this is not that far away, this is not that long ago,'" she expresses. Giving a peek at how her character relates to Monáe's, Sidibe says, "Dawn is today, whereas Eden was yesterday, but if we're not careful, Eden is also tomorrow.
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