Michaela Coel Returns: “When I Do Something for Popularity or Clout, It’s Not As Fulfilling”

Six years ago, Michaela Coel released I May Destroy You — the searingly personal HBO series which she wrote, directed and starred in, and which won her an Emmy Award and landed her in a spotlight unlike any she’d ever experienced. It was the kind of success that could yield a ton of opportunities in all kinds of directions — except, Coel didn’t want that. She felt frustrated by those in her ear telling her to seize the moment — to make the most of her “window.” She felt moved by I May Destroy You’s impact, but also willing to let it go. Eventually, she felt ready to write again — for a project that turned into the most intensive and all-consuming of her career.

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In between all that, she dipped into other worlds. She first took on a small role in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever, and as she tells The Hollywood Reporter over a wide-ranging conversation, learned some hard truths in the process. She guest-starred in Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith reboot series, going on to win a second Emmy. And over several years, she agreed to two leading film roles: In Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers, starring opposite Ian McKellen as a painter who’s been hired to forge a legendary artist’s work, and in David Lowery’s Mother Mary as a stylist whose former and massively famous pop-star client (Anne Hathaway) returns to her orbit after years of estrangement. (The Christophers hits theaters tomorrow, while Mother Mary will be released next week.)

Coel is at the top of her game in each movie — emotionally raw, locked-in with her co-stars, a little mischievous. This feels like the beginning of a new chapter. After all, our chat took place during a very brief production break from her next BBC/HBO/A24 series joint, First Day on Earth. So rejoice, because Michaela Coel is back. 

You’ve got films out with Steven Soderbergh and David Lowery this month. They’re the only directors you’ve acted for over the last few years. What was it like working between them — how do they differ? 

David is more like me, in that we like to ruminate. We like to just go, “Is this right? What about this?” So there were a lot more takes [than with Soderbergh] in a great way. He had a lot more to play with in the edit. Then Steven is like the man in the shadows. You could hear him say “cut,” but he’s real chill. David is also chill, but he’s, I don’t know how I can describe it — less aloof. I love Steven’s aloof thing. (Laughs.) But David is vulnerable. I can really see David and I can see the writer. I can see, “Oh yeah, Steven didn’t write this — Ed [Solomon] wrote it.” David and I, we can just sit there and talk for hours about one line or what we think something could be about. It’s the same with Ed Solomon, actually. But because David is a writer, we have a thing — we were quite connected for the duration of the project.

Mother Mary finished filming almost two years ago, right? So to your point, that’s a lot of time in the editing room. 

And also, David is very collaborative. I’ve seen a couple of different versions of this film. He’s like that, and I support him, but I’m also like, “Dude, I’m not trying to get in the edit. I trust you.” Also, it was during the strike, so it was like, we have pre-strike, we have post-strike. And it was a long shoot, but it was great. I sobbed, sobbed at the end. I didn’t want it to end.

I sobbed at the end! Anne’s last line to you, in the car, is just wrenching. 

I got the script and I read it in a car and I was just reading. My cousin was driving. I got to that and I broke down. It just broke me down. David Lowery’s writing is witchery.

As a filmmaker yourself, when you see people like Steven or David who are even just so different between them, what are you picking up to carry yourself in your own work? 

From Steven, I really learned — and it was so useful for me to learn this because of the project I was about to start filming: Don’t overthink. Trust it. If I go into work like that every day, then it’s easy to know when I shouldn’t trust it. With I May Destroy You, I was checking things, going over and over again. “New take, new take.” “Don’t trust this. Don’t trust that.” But with [First Day on Earth], I’m like, “No, no. The groundwork is laid. Lay back. Everybody’s doing their work.” It’s a different energy and it’s allowed me to have some of the smoothness that Steven has. I can see it. I can see why he approaches the work as he does. He’s very chill. (Laughs.)

Where are you in the filming of First Day on Earth?

We are one-third through and we’ve got until September.

Wow. That’s a mammoth shoot. 

(Nods) We started the first week of January. We finish in September, and then we edit until sometime early summer or end of spring [next year]. And I’m in the edit now. That’s another thing I’ve learned from Steven: Steven goes home and then he’s editing. I’ve realized I’m going to set myself up for when we’re done if I’m focusing on the edit now. So we’re refining those assemblies so that what the studio is receiving is a lot like what we’re actually going to do when we’re done. I love it.

So then you have these two movies coming out, and you’re in New York for the opening. Is that odd, in the midst of what sounds like a huge undertaking? 

It’s crazy, yes. My brain — I don’t know, really, what’s happening. I’m here with you right now. (Laughs.) That’s all I know.

I believe you wrote all 10 hours of First Day on Earth. It’s your first show since I May Destroy You, which went on to incredible success. Any lessons from that experience you’re carrying through to this one? 

I think so. But also my memory of I May Destroy You is just like a haze of loving it. I don’t remember too much. Maybe because COVID came after. This one, it took a lot longer for me to write — this project took a lot longer — and it was rough to write. This was rough. My friends said I looked different. It took a lot. And so I have really, really done a lot of drafts.

I think you’re known for that, from what I know of your work.

(Laughs.) But 10 hours is crazy, man. But I feel good. I have the same team. I have Piers [Wenger], he was at BBC and now he’s at A24. I have Phil Clarke, I have Amy Gravitt [from HBO]. This is my team — their notes and the pushes to scrutinize and reopen and check have been beautifully intense because it’s gotten the scripts to a good place, a really good place. And everybody seems very empowered working in their respective departments. It feels like I’m working with a bunch of writers. My production designer, it’s as if the script is his; my costume designer — they’re all eaten in the story and they are these layers of intense creative ownership. So now I feel very chill because I’m like, we’re actually all running this show. 

The Christophers is the only movie you’ve shot since 2024, since you’ve been so focused on First Day. How was the film presented to you, and why was it a yes? 

It was a phone call from my UK agent, Michael Duff: “We don’t have a script yet, and there is a project with Steven Soderberg, Ian McKellen, Ed Solomon — those are three names packaged together.” I was writing [First Day] at the time, and I am very bad at multitasking and the team knows that, so they leave me alone and they only call me when it’s like, “You are going to want to stop what you’re doing when the time comes to do this.” I knew I was going to have to take a break to do this project and then get back into mine. 

How quickly did you jump into it from there?

I was writing in Ghana, finishing my scripts, flew back straight from the airport, went to Ian McKellen’s house — he wanted to go through the scenes; I’d never met him and just turned up at his door — for five days. Then two days later we were shooting it. No rehearsals. Just a discussion. That was that.

I’m thinking of what it must feel like to suddenly just be at Ian McKellen’s house for five days. 

There were a few moments where Ed and I looked at each other, like, “Who gets to do what we are doing right now? But we can’t think about that right now because we have to focus on the task at hand, which is the film we’re making.” I’d just get back in the room and stay in the room because Ian was in the room. He’s very focused on the story. He wants to know what every scene means — the intention behind this writing, this piece and that piece. He scrutinizes the script so intensely that it forces you to forget that you are working with one of the greatest legends the acting industry has ever had. You just have to focus. 

So much of the movie is just the two of you, reacting to each other. How did getting to know Ian inform the film you then made together? 

One of my earliest, most visceral memories is being at his house, holding his hand. He had this really soft — his hands are so fucking soft. So no matter how hardened or awful his character was, once we got into the scenes, I really remembered inside of Jillian Sklar, there is this soft, gooey, vulnerable thing.

With Mother Mary, you and Anne are also in a very intense place for so much of that movie. There are more scenes where there are tears in someone’s eyes than not, right? It’s very visceral. How did you get to that place together?

We met at a very casual readthrough. It was pretty instant that we’re both quite raw and open. I don’t know why. I don’t know what that means. But we read and it was very vulnerable and raw and messy. I had no fear of showing myself to her. I think perhaps she felt the same way.

Your Christophers character, Lori, can be very hard to read until the final act. I was fascinated by the way you played her, which I think was different from how another actor might approach her, in that there’s never anything sinister or malevolent despite what she’s ostensibly there to do — which is steal. How did you want to telegraph that? 

Yeah, there’s a version of trying to make her seem evil or going out of my way to make sure the audience knows, “I’m a good person,” but actually she’s a very cerebral person. Even though she lives with people, she’s quite lonely. I didn’t want to share her internal mind the way that maybe I could have. 

I felt pretty steadfast. There were maybe one or two scenes where it was kind of like, “How much do I show?” There’s a really lovely scene when Julian comes to Lori’s house and he says that he’s thinking of making a comeback. That’s the one scene where we did maybe three or four takes. Normally it’s one or two. (Laughs) To keep a little bit hard, and then allow her to be changed when she sees that he is changing — you see the vulnerability come, and Steven encouraged me to do that just a little bit. He’s a very smooth guy. He doesn’t want you to do too much.

The Christophers is a dialogue-driven movie, and the script really digs into what it means to be an artist and how that changes over generations. Did that material spark anything in you? 

The film deals in the subject of legacy and legacy isn’t something that I think about. This did make me think life will go on even when we’re not living it, and art, whether we’re thinking about it or not, there’s a way for it to continue living on in the minds of people, as Julian says. That’s what Lori does for him. It’s such a weird thing to think about that I’d never really engaged with before. We are here for a moment. We make things, we make stories, we make children, we make monuments, and we die. And they live on for a little bit — at least, for a little bit. 

I’m surprised that it isn’t something you’d ever thought about before.

Yeah. It’s actually more that I actively don’t think about it because I think that’s a really weird way to live. (Laughs.) You know what I mean? People do live like that. I don’t. I am actively trying to focus on what is in my hand in any present moment.

That must challenge you at some points over the course of your career, right? If I think of what happened with I May Destroy You, all that attention and excitement, there was a lot of talk around how it impacted people. It’s lived on. Did you find that?

Yes, but that feels like my present moment. I still meet people — and it’s actually been six years so to know, “Yes, that is a part of my present moment” — I am still astounded. I live in astonishments about how that show impacted people’s lives. 

And that’s something you can’t anticipate, right?

No, and at the time that I was writing it, I wasn’t thinking about the future or legacy. It was like, “This story, whoa.” Filming it, “Whoa, these actors, this set designer, the lighting’s amazing.” It’s always what is in my hand right now, and then it just grows. My focus cannot be on, “What this is going to be.” That’s weird.

You mentioned earlier not being the best multitasker. In the moment after I May Destroy You, I’d imagine the amount of offers and opportunities coming your way were changing, and clearly you stayed focused and particular. How did you navigate that?

I remember somebody saying to me, “This is the window.” Something in that phrase made me think, “Oh, operating in that way makes me feel like underneath that is a fear of a window closing.” I was like, that’s weird energy. I don’t want that. So I kind of looked away from the window. I May Destroy You was like a kite. It was huge in the sky, and I was just holding the thing, and then I let go and it’s flying in the sky, but now I have to make something new. I didn’t want to do too much of the window-closing stuff because I also learned that I have to really feel like it’s purpose-driven. 

What does that even mean? I can tell when I’ve made a decision based on something that isn’t quite right to me. It’s hard to explain, but I know that when I do something for popularity or clout, it’s not as fulfilling as doing something like Mother Mary or The Christophers, where my body is pulled to this story, to these people. I’d rather not be visible and not be doing anything. I’m very fortunate in that I can sustain myself and not work for a little bit and tinker around my laptop and just see if something comes to my soul.

So what did you learn coming off of Wakanda Forever? That was the first acting job you took after I May Destroy You. 

I really don’t think I was ready for that world of green-screen acting. I literally don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to act when something isn’t there. It’s a skill that I had not quite possessed. I feel like a different version of me would serve that well, but when one is not quite prepared for a job, it’s also quite hard to feel like I’m serving it — and then I’m not serving the story. And then what am I doing here then? I love Ryan Coogler so much. But I feel like I was a little astray.

It is interesting to hear you say that about that experience and then have these two movies, where so much of it is just you and another actor in a room — about as intimate as you can get. It seems like that’s where you’re happiest.

I wasn’t ready for Wakanda. I’m watching Angela Bassett kill her scenes. It is a different world, and I think it’s different muscles. The muscle easier to use for me is in that intimate, small room — two people, heavy, thick dialogue, psychological. This is what I really enjoy.

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