“We Still Have A Ways To Go” — Jessye Romeo On Why It Took So Long To Get A Female Robin Hood

The classic tale of the legendary outlaw who robs from the rich and gives to the poor has been adapted over 70 times for movies and TV. And now, in 2023, it's finally been reimagined with a woman of colour in the titular role.

Stan's brand new series Robyn Hood stars Pennyworth's Jessye Romeo as Robyn Loxley, a rapper from New Nottingham who, along with her hip hop band The Hood, fights corruption and inequality in her community.

Romeo was initially drawn to the role because she knew it would be a challenge. "It was a really exciting role and a chance to flex a lots of different muscles for me," she tells Refinery29 Australia. "I knew it was going to be challenging, but in a good way. It felt like a stretch for my brain and for my body physically, and ultimately it's this timeless story that we can still apply to modern life."

The series was created by Director X, who is best known for producing music videos for the likes of Drake, Future and Kendrick Lamar. It was filmed in Toronto and is set in a working-class area of a fictional Canadian city called New Nottingham.

Before Romeo had even started working with her dialect coach, Director X introduced her to Drake at a dinner party, and he asked the London native to try the Canadian accent.

"I was like 'oh my god, oh my god, no pressure!' I mean I was already feeling so much pressure," she laughs.

While filming the eight-episode series, Romeo decided to stay in the accent most of the time. "I was in the accent all the time, Monday to Friday for sure, for the first seven weeks. As the process went on, sometimes I'd give myself some days off," she explains. "By what my incredible dialect coach Rea Nolan explained to me is that when you're speaking in another accent, you're using different muscles in your face. So when you get used to using one particular accent, and then you change it, you kind of get a sore face."

Along with the dialect coaching, Romeo went through intense physical training to be able to nail the series' action-packed scenes.

"It was a combination of stunt training with all of our stunt team who are incredible, and I was doing some MMA, I was doing some boxing training, and I was doing Barry's Bootcamp which I love, just to keep myself in shape," she explains. "It was rigorous, I think it's the hardest I've trained in my life."

While the tale of Robin Hood has been adapted many times for both the big and small screen, this is the first time a woman of colour has been in the lead role, and also the first time the story has been set in a modern-day working class area, where most of the residents are people of colour. Romeo says that the series is a great step forward in bringing more representation to TV, but we still have a lot of work to do.

"I think it speaks to the times really, you know, that there is more representation within the film and TV industry but I believe that we still have a ways to go," she says. "Sometimes I think we've really made strides, and then things will happen and I realise oh maybe not..."

"You know all the schtick that Halle Berry was getting for playing The Little Mermaid and you feel like, oh god, we've gone backwards now."

For Romeo, representation on screen and in the entertainment industry more broadly, is personal. The Pennyworth star always wanted to be an actress but it wasn't until she was 17 or 18 and she saw Noma Dumezweni (The Undoing, The Watcher) on stage in the West End that she truly believed it was an option for her.

"She was the first Black woman I saw as a lead in the West End, commanding the stage and [she] was really the whole play and something clicked then," she explains.

"I wrote to her on Facebook and I said 'I really want to become an actress and I was really inspired by your performance' and she wrote back to me, which was lovely, and we've since met and we follow each other on Instagram."

"It is that important, representation, and it shouldn't have taken me that long [to see myself on stage, since] I was at the theatre all the time. Maybe if I had seen that earlier it might have changed the timing for me, realising I could really do this."

Robyn Loxley is exactly the kind of strong female lead who can inspire the next generation of women, especially women of colour, to stand up for themselves and their community and go after their dreams.