Welcome to Don’t Sleep On Them, our weeklong seriesmarking the launch of UnbotheredUK. Not a single actor of colour was nominatedfor a BAFTA this year, so we’re using the week leading up to theawards to spotlight incredible black British actresses. Join us in celebratingthe women slaying the game and check back tomorrow tosee who else we’re rooting for.
An orange polo neck. A wool-blend skirt. A vacant stare and half-clenched fists that rest almost as if the person attached to them forgot what they’d spent so long fiercely angry about. That’s the lasting image that breakout star, Naomi Ackie, left when we came out the other side of the second season of Channel 4’s sleeper hit The End of the F**king World.
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Towing the line between terrifying and heartbreaking is no easy quest. But Naomi’s performance as Bonnie, a mysterious and deeply troubled young woman just released from jail and driven by a one-track conviction to avenge the death of her past abuser (her trauma was multilayered, to say the least), was loaded in a brilliant, almost startling way.
Despite my concerns about where this positioning of a vulnerable black woman sits in a sparse canon of TV shows that wholeheartedly explore mental health from the perspectives of women of colour, Naomi's delivery soared far beyond reservations about what her character said about the real world.
Before Bonnie, Naomi was Anna in the 2016 film Lady Macbeth. The following year, she earned the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer and, wow, did she come through on that promise.
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Naomi earned the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer and, wow, did she come through on that promise.
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If you caught The Bisexual, Desiree Akhavan's gem of a miniseries at the tail end of 2018, you'll remember Naomi as Ruby – the excitable blogger with wide eyes and a shallow vision of what grown-ups like to call "the real world". Next came that attention-stealing part in TEOTFW, the world blinked and, before we knew it, she was starring alongside John Boyega in one of the highest grossing, most celebrated film franchises in existence.
As Jannah in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, Naomi became one of the very few black women to play a prominent role in the current Star Wars universe. The accolade didn't fall lightly on Naomi's shoulders. She told Vanity Fair: "[J.J. Abrams] was like, no pressure, but this is gonna mean a lot to a lot of black—young girls in particular—but black people."
J.J. was right, of course. The overwhelming sense of pride felt by a community of women was immeasurable. The strength and power Naomi commanded as Jannah in the posters, with her hair big and expression void of fear, is moving to even the most reluctant Star Wars fan. Within Naomi we see possibility and it's as exciting as it is duly owed. At the end of The Rise Of Skywalker, we were teased the possibility of more for Jannah. Whichever way the Star Wars universe expands, we know that there's plenty more for Naomi in the future, too.
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