Maya Rudolph and Carmen Ejogo Talk 'Away We Go'

It always delights me when biracial actors get to play biracial characters. In Away We Go, Maya Rudolph and Carmen Ejogo get the opportunity to play sisters. Women & Hollywood and Cinema Blend did a nice job of interviewing them on that subject...

Maya Rudolph:

What are your thoughts on why we don't see more films with African American women leads?

It's certainly not for me to answer because I have nothing to do with why the world is as fucked up as it is. It has less to do with TV and movies and more to do with race and history and culture. It's obviously a reflection of the world we live in. Although I still can't believe we have a president who is mixed like me. It's one thing that we have a black president but for me it's even crazier because he's mixed. I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me.

I can't believe I'm living in a time where I feel proud of my president where I feel like things are actually positive and people feel good about where our country can be.

I don't know the answer to your question and I don't know if there is one. I plan to keep doing what I'm doing because race is just not a part of the way I look at the world and the way I live my life. I think that was a minor, key thing in the way that Dave and Vendela wrote the script. Verona is mixed and Burt is white but nobody talks about it. That felt realistic to me in my day to day life. People expect race to be an issue and I was raised in a house where it was never as issue. My parents were interested in having us feel like we were normal whatever that is.

Carmen Ejogo:

Sam has talked about one of the interesting themes of the movie being this interracial theme that's not at all discussed overtly.

Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don't know that I'm most people's definition of what a black person is. I'm mixed, yes, but in the world I'm defined as black before I'm defined white. I've never been called white. I'm just excited that in a film like this, that mixed people, black people, whatever people are being given the space to be idiosyncratic, and have a breadth of emotions, and not be related back to how that is informed by your being black. It's really liberating to see a piece of material like this out in the world, and i just hope there's more of it. I've been craving that stuff my whole career, and there's not been enough of it. As an artist, there's so many categories that you're put into, that there are so many things that I"m about that I've never explored as an artist on film. I don't see myself in so many characters in film. I think that's changing with films like this.

[via MsWoo]