Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa, who has been going from one height to another, recently shared his candid thoughts about his experience working on the hit Netflix show.
The actor discussed some of the challenges he faced while bringing his character to life. Gatwa revealed that his time on set wasn’t always filled with joy.
“It was very hard; it was such a big show,” Gatwa admitted to Rolling Stone UK before continuing, “When you’re telling stories that haven’t been seen before, there’s always a battle as to how to tell them. It wasn’t always joyous. I feel like we’ve outgrown it and we’ve given everything we can to it.”
Gatwa, who earned praise for his portrayal of Eric Effiong, recounted instances where he ad-libbed lines for Eric to make the character more authentic, only to receive pushback from producers who expressed concerns about whether white viewers would understand those lines.
He told Rolling Stone UK, “I remember being told by an executive producer that white people wouldn’t understand my character, Eric, which incensed me. There’s an entire show there for white people to understand.”
Earlier, Gatwa had revealed to British Vogue, “There were producers coming up to me like, ‘This ad-lib, I don’t feel like white people will understand it,’” but he stood his ground, stating, “‘It’s not for white people to understand. There are many white people in this show for white people to understand, but I want this other group of people to understand Eric. And that’s what you want too.’ And they got that. We were all constantly learning on that job.”
But after getting the record straight, Gatwa also mentioned how “The trajectory of my life changed five years ago, in 2018,” referring to his breakthrough role in Sex Education. “And that was one thing. That was a very fast-moving train. I’m still trying to get to grips with what happened then but… now the train has gone turbo this past year.”
Among a ton of other anecdotes about his time shooting for Barbie, all set for a grand release on July 21st, Gatwa also let slip that the iconic David Tennant added him to a Doctor Who group chat where he received lots of support and advice from the former Docs.
Gatwa is one of the many Kens in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, alongside Simu Liu, Ryan Gosling, and more. Now, with filming for Sex Education completed, the talented actor is all set to take on the iconic role of the 15th Doctor in Doctor Who.
