Jayme Lawson and Zainab Jah play daughter and mother in "Farewell Amor"
In celebration of Mother’s Day I recently moderated a conversation over Zoom between actors Zainab Jah and Jayme Lawson. We'll be sharing it with you in three installments. For the first dispatch Jah and Lawson talked about their performances as mother and daughter in the Sundance 2020 film Farewell Amor, written and directed by Ekwa Msangi, and their favourite mother/daughter relationships at the movies.
Jah has previously appeared in TV shows like Homeland and Deep State but is best known for the Broadway play Eclipsed co-starring Lupita Nyong’o. Lawson is a newcomer and a recent graduate of Julliard who appeared last season in The Public Theater's production of For Colored Girls. She recently booked a major role in an upcoming film that you may have heard of, The Batman (2021)...
In their film Farewell Amor, Jah is Esther and Lawson is Sylvia, mother and daughter Angolan immigrants who arrive in New York to reunite with Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), Esther's husband and Sylvia's father, after a long separation. The film is attune to the intricate ways people grow apart and find each other again. Jah and Lawson chart a credible touching relationship as their characters try to settle in a new environment with a man who is now a stranger to them.
The conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, starts with how they formed that bond in the rehearsal room.
JAYME LAWSON: Before filming we had two weeks where we sat around the table and discussed a lot of the relationship prior to even showing up on set.
ZAINAB JAH: Which is really unusual on film!
JAYME: I was very appreciative of it because you're talking about how do you authenticate such a deep relationship specifically with Esther and Sylvia as mother and daughter? How do you create that relationship of 17 years together by themselves? And there's this other person out there that supposedly left to provide for you. And just talking all the details out of when did they move from Angola to Tanzania and where did they grow up, what the belief system was in that house. All of that was very informative and necessary and played out in different ways once we got on set. But if we didn't have it, I think the film would be more clumsy.
ZAINAB: It's background as well. We were able to really appreciate how we could use that time, use it to unpack all the nuances of their relationship, and what are our own individual personal backgrounds could bring to it.
The conversation then shifts to Mother’s Day and their favorite family relationships on film.
ZAINAB:The Color Purple. The credits start rolling and I'm crying already before the movie starts.
JAYME: Yeah. I can't even think of another movie now.
ZAINAB: It's the first thing that comes to mind, right?
JAYME: One of the first films my mother and I ever watched together was the Sydney Poitier version of A Raisin in the Sun. That relationship with Mama and Beneatha -- I remember I was so young and we were watching it on her laptop -- both of us got emotional, it was one of those first moments where we understood each other through that film.
ZAINAB: This is what I love about Jayme, the fact that she'll say 'I was so young, we watched it on the laptop.' There were no laptops when I was young [laughing]. We watched it in the sky, it was projected.
Continuing in the spirit of Mother’s Day, Zainab offers Jayme some advice as she starts her promising career...
ZAINAB: My advice to you is keep doing what you're doing. You're amazing. You're going to be so amazing. It's just going to get better and better. And I can't wait to see how you improve and grow because your instrument is so primed. You're so ready. You are so ready. And so keep your confidence up and keep growing that hair.
JAYME: Yes. It's protected right now. [Jayme points at her head scarf.].
ZAINAB: Keep your sense of humor. Don't let any of the drama or the unnecessary stuff get to you and knock your confidence, you know?
Jayme’s upcoming role in The Batman as "Bella Reál" comes up..
JAYME: It was an audition. I had originally gone in just to get familiar with the casting director. Just to show my face. That's what you're doing in the beginning. anyway.
ZAINAB: Yeah. 'Here I am.'
JAYME: And I hadn't gone yet in for Cindy [Cindy Tolan, the casting director for The Batman]. I just wanted to show my face and I went in for a completely different part. Then later it evolved into coming in for that role. I think we were still in rehearsals for For Colored Girls when I found out that I had gotten it. It was like, wait, really? Because it happened so many weeks before. I had forgotten about it. It's one of those things you just need to chalk up to you just go in and whatever happens happens.
ZAINAB: Isn't it great when that happens? I have come to terms with the fact that I've moved on. It's a wonderful surprise when it happens.
JAYME: Yes, it truly is.
ZAINAB: I love that. Keep that. Do your best and walk away knowing you've done your best and let it go because otherwise you'll just sit there and bite your nails.
JAYME: Waiting and harping on it. Yeah.
ZAINAB: You've done your best and just give it up to God and just let it go.
JAYME: For real.
ZAINAB: It's the best advice I can give you about this industry. Do your best and walk away.
Actors Mwine, Lawson and Jah at an event for "Farewell Amor" earlier this year
In part two, Zainab and Jayme will discuss the differences and similarities between acting on stage and in a film.