Despite being told she was too black for Batman, Zoë Kravitz has a very diverse IMDB page. Most recently she’s infiltrated the worlds of subverted bro comedy (Rough Night) and witchcraft and wizardry (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them). But Zoë knows that her genre-smashing success doesn’t mean racism is over. Speaking to Net-a-Porter’s The Edit, the actor and musician said she has simply come to terms with Hollywood microaggressions.
“I’m sure it would still happen now,” Zoë said of the time she missed out on a role in The Dark Knight Rises because the film wasn’t “going urban.” “When my name is brought up in a casting office, I’m sure the fact that I’m black comes up in discussions. I just read a script in which there were two couples, and one was written as black. When I talked to the directors, they said I should play the wife of the black guy. It’s insane that they still think the black girl needs to be married to the black guy, and everyone else is white. Their thinking is so compartmentalized.”
Hence why Zoë was stoked to score the role of an anal-retentive real estate agent in Rough Night. “It was fun to play a conservative rich bitch with a bob and nice clothes and heels,” she said. “She is so unlike me, and so unlike what I am often cast as.” Rough Night hits theaters tomorrow — but Zoë already has the internet itching for the remake of a certain 1968 thriller about a waifish housewife pregnant with a demon baby.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Photography Matt Jones