Hollywood actress Amanda Stenberg says she wants to help create more black and gay narratives.
“Just because we have ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Love, Simon’ doesn’t mean we’re anywhere close to where we need to be,” she said. “But I think that they’re incredible first steps, they’re revolutionary first steps and the result is diversity even within those categories of identity.”
The “Everything, Everything” and “Hunger Games” star recently spoke with Variety about her upcoming project “The Hate U Give.”
In “The Hate U Give,” which is based off of a novel with the same name, Stenberg plays lead character Starr, a young woman who grows up in a black neighborhood but then attends a predominantly white school. The inciting incident for the film’s conflict happens when Starr’s childhood best friend Khalil is shot by a police officer while she sits in the car beside him.
“I walked away from the set with a little bit of residual trauma because these are real people, real experiences, there are families that have their kids shot and killed by police.”
“I hope that it makes people think,” she said of the film. “And really understand the experience of the black community. There’s such a power when people have empathy through on-screen narratives. I feel like it’s starting to change and it’s really exciting to see that change.”
In terms of creating black and gay narratives, Stenberg has done so ever since her viral video talking about cultural appropriation back in 2015.
Afterwards, she used that attention to kickstart projects like bisexual short film “Blue Girls Burn Fast,” her music video for the cover of Mac DeMarco’s “Let My Baby Stay,” and ongoing comic series Niobe.
Then on a personal level, Amandla experimented with labels for her won identity and sexuality. She played around with labels such as bisexual and gender-fluid before deciding on the label of being gay.
Through all that, she has remained an advocate for LGBTQ/Black entertainment and stories, and it looks like she won’t quit anytime soon.
h/t: Variety
