2016 may just be the year of Naomie Harris. The actress was just nominated for both a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for her role in Moonlight, and now she's starring opposite Will Smith in Collateral Beauty.
But while she played a mother in both films, the characters couldn't be more different. In Moonlight, she was a crack-addicted mother who manages to be equal parts overprotective and negligent; in Collateral Beauty, she's a mother grieving the loss of her 6-year-old daughter. Harris tells us that the latter was particularly difficult because she couldn't begin to imagine the loss her character Madeleine was coping with.
"For me the challenge...was just this whole concept of grief and loss, because I hadn't really experienced a kind of big loss in my life," Harris says. "So I really had to do a lot of research to try and understand what that would feel like."
She adds that playing this character taught her an unexpected lesson.
"What's wonderful about Madeleine is that she has found the collateral beauty in her loss, she has seen the beauty in that, and she has gotten to a point where she's made her life about helping other people," says Harris. "The lasting legacy [of Collateral Beauty] for me will be that I do take the time now to look for the collateral beauty, to look for the gift in even the darkest moments."
Watch the full interview with Harris below. Collateral Beauty is in theaters December 16.
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