Shifters Star Heather Agyepong Talks Meaningful Artistry With BLK BRIT

British-Ghanaian actress and artist Heather Agyepong speaks with BLK Brit in a lively, inspirational conversation around her latest works, exploration of deep themes and navigating the arts with purpose.  

Heather stars alongside Tosin Cole in Shifters - following the play's success at the Bush Theatre, the new show run is now in full swing from 12th August to 12th October 2024 at the renowned Duke of York's Theatre, synonymous with great artistry. On the production team are Idris Elba, Little Simz and more recently Maya Jama, who are passionate about supporting bringing the great work of Benedict Lombe to the West End. In her latest screen performance, Heather speaks on her role in Joy for Netflix which follows the true story of the world’s first IVF baby, to be released later this year. 

We also delve into Heather’s award-winning photography, inspired by subjects such as mental health, wellbeing and the diaspora. Her upcoming solo exhibition Ego Death alongside the debut screening of The Body Remembers is a visual exploration of how trauma lives in the body; one to look out for in early 2025.

Credits - Photography: David Reiss, Styling: Luci Ellis, Hair: Kieron Lavine, Makeup: Min Sandhu

Firstly, let’s touch on your upcoming performance run in the West End with the play Shifters, the trailers look absolutely amazing. It touches on some powerful themes such as love, the Black body, grief and abuse. Please go into what originally attracted you to the project.

“That’s a great question, what attracted me initially was the writing. Bene [Benedict Lombe] is a genius! She writes about humanity and the layers of humanity; sometimes with love stories, you get these people who come with these blank slates and then interact. But she talks about these two characters, Des and Dre, they come with baggage and secrets and scars. And they love each other in spite of that. And this feeling of being seen in a really messy and vulnerable way is just something that I didn’t see, especially with two dark-skinned leads. So that writing was the biggest hook and then the team probably the second thing.” 

How do you tap into those deeper topics within your acting? I know it’s scripted, but in terms of your delivery? 

“Lynette Linton is the director who is incredible and she has a drama therapist on most of her projects. There's one on this project called Wabriya King and she is incredible at it. Because when you're acting, your body doesn't know it's an act, right? Your body accepts it as truth. So she's really good at putting feelings in like parts of your body to kind of compartmentalise it. So with Des, she's got some anxiety so I focus on okay, I’m going to show that in the hands, so I don’t take it as my own, it’s very separate. So Wabriya has been incredible at separating all of that to make sure it’s safe and I’m able to do it again and again.” 

That’s a brilliant tool to use, and it’s great to have that representation of a story that’s more reflective of real love where two people aren’t coming into it neatly packaged. 

“Absolutely, and it’s encouraging because it shows what I want the audience to feel, is that you are worthy of love despite everything that has gone on in your life; the heartbreaks, the trauma, the massive success, the complexities, you are worthy of love. Because I think in this age where people are portraying like their perfect and polished self, to be loved deeply in a messy way feels really radical.” 

It is great to see a variety of stories for the Black community and have them performed in these types of spaces [West End]. What do you feel it adds to the Black British conversation as a whole?

“So Bene really wants to shift the canon of what it means to be a romantic lead, especially for Black women, right? Because often we're not seen in that scope. So I think this idea of love and beauty and sexiness, which really is part of the narrative of the show, she's really keen. She feels it's really important to have two darker skinned leads portray that. And also Bene is the third Black British writer to ever have their show transferred to the West End, so this idea of multiplicity of stories and stories about sure pain, but also love and joy and healing, so it feels like we are adding to the variety of Black British stories.” 

I love that! So going into some more of your acting your role in the series The Power last year delved into the theme of having powers among women, and then your theatre co-star Tosin Cole with Supacell; what do you feel is the attraction for audiences with the theme of powers and fantasy, and also for the actor and writers?

“That is such a great question around power, I think we’re in a crazy time right now and I think there's always questions about who has power, specifically in terms of intense intersectionality when it intersects race and class, so I think there feels like a cultural shift in who should have power and how can one empower themselves. It often feels like writers use genres like sci-fi and fantasy to kind of daydream about what the possibilities could be. Because even in my visual artwork, the idea of dreaming or reimagination allows me to create possible futures for myself. So I think the idea of fantasy allows us to dream, but also to create change, right?” 

Credits - Photography: David Reiss, Styling: Luci Ellis, Hair: Kieron Lavine, Makeup: Min Sandhu

Yes, it creates a powerful discourse around it, but like in a way that's also entertaining because people digest it a lot better. You also have your role in the upcoming film Joy about the first IVF baby. Please go into your role within that film and the significance for you choosing that project. 

“So I didn’t even know IVF was created in this country, I don’t know why I assumed it was American and reading the story about a group of women; it was three main people, a woman and two men who started discovering this. I'm one of the characters who is part of the trial in terms of how IVF can be actualised. So using these women who basically couldn't have children but really wanted to create something to allow other women to have kids. This sort of feeling of sisterhood and connectivity feels really important and also the significant contributions that British women have made in terms of IVF, which has changed the world for everyone and given opportunities for different women to have children. What's really wonderful is Ben Taylor, the director, he's also the executive producer of Sex Education, he really was interested in having a diverse group of women represent the ovum club who were the women who wanted to help create this IVF. And I just really rate that because Black and Brown women, all sorts of women have issues with having children, fibroids, endometriosis, like all of this stuff. So it felt like it was really feeding into how all sorts of women have issues with fertility, which is brilliant to be a part of.” 

Definitely, it’s an important conversation across the board. Acting in theatre productions is different from films which is also different from series, so what is the appeal of each one for you?

“It’s gorgeous! I think for theatre it’s that audience man, it’s hearing the gasps, especially Shifters at the Bush Theatre when we did it, ah Charlene, that audience was live-ly! Shouting and screaming and gasps and because it was sold out basically every night, just the energy in the room felt really palatable so you're getting kind of an instant reward and you hear people engage straight away, so the audience I think. I think series feels really beautiful when you're trying to kind of unpack a vision or a concept and the episodes give people time to digest those moments. And I think film is really interesting because I guess there's a beginning, middle and end, right? It's a whole succinct thing. So it feels really exciting that you're depicting an entire journey. But I find theatre the most physically demanding thing because you’re doing 8 shows a week. But it’s all just different types of storytelling and also different audiences get to see it so yeah, I love all of them, and my art, I love it more.” 

Going into that, you’re very multi-disciplinary and you undertake projects with such powerful messages. You being an accomplished artist, you have an upcoming solo exhibition Ego Death with the screening of The Body Remembers, all about how trauma lives in the body, it sounds amazing. Please tell me about the curation of that project.

“So Ego Death is about making peace with parts of myself that I've shamed or abandoned or ignored.  I'm interested in a concept by Carl Jung, which believes that there's parts of ourselves that we’ve shamed and repressed, but the more that we ignore those parts the more they sharpen our lives. I really wanted to create this sense of radical acceptance. So things like names I was called when I was younger or things people spoke over me, or parts of myself that I've really wanted to hide, in this project I really wanted to create characters so I could visually see. For example, one of the images is called The Saboteur so I could see what that saboteur looks like. You hear these kinds of critical voices in your head, but seeing them visually feels in a sense they have less power over you because you can identify them. So it was an incredibly vulnerable project about accepting these various parts of me. And yeah, it won an award at the National Portrait Gallery, the Taylor Wessing exhibition, it was part of that. There's going to be another solo exhibition early next year, there's a video project called The Body Remembers which is about how trauma lives in the body but it’s also about how movement can help with the healing process. That video performance has never been seen before, so it will be the first time people can engage in that work too.”

That’s brilliant, when will this project be running?

“Between February and March 2025 at a gallery called Doyle Wham in East London.” 

Mental health, wellbeing and any kind of trauma, they are buzzwords especially as public awareness grows around these topics. So how important is it to touch on and discuss these types of subjects?

“I think my main impetus with making work is about me primarily. I think sometimes there is a bit of a difficulty when you're talking about the community and feel like you need to represent everybody. So I decided, I'm just going to talk specifically about me. And then if it touches people who identify as women, who identify as Black, who identify as African, great. But I just really wanted it to be specifically about me. And that specificity has been more impactful for community discourse than just talking about people in general. So yeah, I make work to help understand myself better to reveal deeper layers of myself and to feel a sense of authenticity, it feeds into all of those things in being really honest about my experiences.” 

Credits - Photography: David Reiss, Styling: Luci Ellis, Hair: Kieron Lavine, Makeup: Min Sandhu

You’ve got so much beautiful depth across all of your projects; the theatre, acting, the art, and it covers some quite heavy themes, some lighter ones too. But what do you do to decompress? What does your joy look like?

“Making work gives me the most amount of joy to be honest (both laugh) I like being radically authentic or vulnerable. Like with Shifters playing a character that complex that's so full of joy, but also processing grief and loss and like deep massive love,  all of those outlets just make me feel really alive and also helps me connect with people. I think being really vulnerable and honest allows me to have really deeper relationships in terms of artistic relationships, so yeah they make me feel great. Also long walks, summer in London is like my favourite time because I can just walk for hours and it's light for a really long time and that's helped me process a lot of stuff too. And I think the last thing is community, hanging out with my pals and feeling supported. Because the industries can be quite challenging sometimes, so having my folks where they can pour back into me is something I think is really crucial to sustain within my practice.” 

I love that. So what I've got from that is you find joy in it all and see the beauty in the whole spectrum of it, even the difficulties, not just plucking out the good bits, because all of it composes who we are as people. 

“100%, I think there's a quote which is, ‘The only way out is through.’ So sometimes you need to go through the dark times to come out and process it. So I just think all of it is healing, I never want to be stuck in anything, I always want to be moving.” 

And that's what the word holistic means. It's the whole. 

“Yes!”

I think some people miss that trick. They just think it's all massages and candles.

(Both laugh) “If only, Charlene, if only.”

So have you always known you wanted to go into the arts? And what was the origin of it for you? 

“Yeah, I've always wanted to act. But I remember with my family that for me to pursue acting I had to do like a ‘proper’ degree. So I did a psychology degree. And then I picked up a camera and got really good at it, had an exhibition and that was great and I thought I’m just going to be a photographer, but I really missed acting. But everyone was saying, ‘You can only do one or another,’ but I wanted to do both, so I just found mentors and my agent who just understood that I’m doing loads of mediums, not just one. That helped, having people to believe in you was really important to me.”

And it’s nice when you can channel through different mediums because I feel sometimes a particular artform fits the conversation and comes across in a certain type of way. It's great you didn’t pigeonhole yourself, I feel most creatives are multi-disciplinary because there isn’t just one avenue of sharing expression. 

“Yes!”

So the arts can be tricky to navigate for people at any level, a lot of industries are but the arts in particular. What keeps you passionate and motivated? 

“Ooh.. I think it’s back to the community. I remember when I started making art, to find a mentor I needed to find someone who's done it and knows how to navigate. So I just searched loads of people and asked if we could have coffee. And yeah, I started in 2015 and I still know them and they've been able to kind of signpost me to stuff and point me in the direction of organisations which focus on my ethos and work I wanted to make. Also finding organisations and institutions to work with that genuinely wanted to support and develop me as an artist. And what keeps me motivated? I don’t know, I think it’s that inner call of being an artist and I feel like I need to make work. Because it’s difficult, it’s very challenging but I feel like I can't do anything else, like a calling in some way. So the projects come, the ideas come and I just know I need to do it. It’s like an internal kick up the bum! (Both laugh).”

Last question; what would you love to explore more of in the future and people or organisations that you would like to work with? 

“Oh, so there is a film called, well, it's a book series called Children of Blood and Bone. And it's beautiful, afro-future. You know it?”

I love that book!

“It’s gorgeous! A world full of predominantly dark-skinned and different kinds of black-hued people who are gods and goddesses and interested in magic. That book was so gorgeous when I read it and it's becoming a film. So yeah, if I could just even, my toe to be in that film I would love it (both laugh) because that film would be incredible! So yeah, people who are using genre to talk about not just representation but interesting ways of Black folk navigating the world and interesting concepts and visions. So yes, Tomi Adeyemi, she is the writer and anything around that, that’s the dream.” 

It has been such a pleasure, thank you for speaking with us.