We all have so many masks that we put on, which are essentially survival mechanisms to deal with the chaos of life and the world, which this time is teaching us is infinitely chaotic. You can learn a lot about a character from their moments of solitude and silence, and we see a lot of moments of Kwame by himself - even when he’s in the room with people, often you see him a little bit cut off from them. This might be because I come from a theatrical background, but I’m just curious about how deep you can go with characters in terms of their psychology, their responses and what they don’t say. What’s your process for figuring out how you’re going to embody a character like Kwame? All we can do is make it as truthful as possible and as authentic as possible. I think it’s pointless to try and second guess the way that people are going to react. Who could have predicted that we would now not only be lockdown, but also in the throes of a political pandemic, which also affects the way that people are able to take on this kind of work? We were just trying to do justice to the story that’s put in front of us and trying to fill these characters with as much humanity as they deserve. That allows ego to interfere with what you’re doing. I didn’t think about the difference until your friends’ grandparents start critiquing your work, and suddenly you’re like, “Wow, we’ve actually gone outside of the audience you might expect.” It feels like it’s reaching a lot of different types of people and ages, which is very thrilling. How different does the show being available on demand on HBO (and the BBC in Britain) feel from some of the high-profile theater roles you’ve had? These are edited excerpts from the conversation. In a recent Zoom interview, the actor - a 30-year-old with a stage background including roles like Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company - discussed the impact of not seeing sexual assault between men depicted on TV, survival mechanisms to marginalization and his experience working with an intimacy coordinator. Essiedu expects it will be familiar to many viewers. When Kwame reports the assault to the police, an officer responds with confusion, distrust and prejudice - an experience of not feeling valued by institutions that are supposed to protect people. But after consensual sex, the man who is hosting assaults Kwame. Through an app, he finds a man who can host a date with him and Damon ( Fehinti Balogun), who wants to explore his sexuality. Then, in the fourth episode, Kwame experiences his own trauma. As the woman, Arabella (played by Coel), pieces together what happened on a night that someone spiked her drink and then reports the rape to the police in the first few episodes, her best friend, Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), is by her side.
The show - created by and starring Michaela Coel, and aired on HBO in the United States - is billed as exploring the issue of consent and the impact of sexual assault on a female writer who lives in London. In a show that confronts viewers again and again with raw depictions of events they’re unlikely to have seen on television, the sexual assault of a young man in the fourth episode of “ I May Destroy You” stands out as an especially searing moment. This interview includes spoilers for the fourth and fifth episodes of “I May Destroy You.”
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