Tamara Lawrance on Get Millie Black and the challenges faced by Black female-led shows

She’s now bagged that most coveted of gigs, the eponymous television detective in Booker Prize winner Marlon James’s debut drama series Get Millie Black. And yet, despite the quality, profile and variety of these projects, she’s “free and available at the moment”, she says with a smile.

“I’ve been very lucky with my career, but some of my friends are like, ‘You’re leading this show. How come you don’t have another job yet? I thought you’d be in Hollywood now!’” the 30-year-old actor explains. “Listen, I’m in north London washing my dishes… It’s still hard – getting momentum is a struggle. People in the industry are speaking more about metrics and social media numbers – producers need to guarantee something will make money, so they’re more likely to cast somebody with a huge following, instead of taking a risk. I think people are craving newness – how many productions of Jane Eyre can you put on? Hopefully, this year opens doors.”

None of this, it should be emphasised, is said with a hint of self-pity. Lawrance, speaking to me from her home (and not washing up, at least as far as I can tell), is by turns serious and playful, intense and relaxed, warm and challenging, and always admirably matter-of-fact.

And if there’s any justice, playing Millie Black should be a game-changer for her. Lawrance is magnificent as a detective working on the Jamaican Police Force’s missing persons unit three years after a disastrous case saw her forced out of the Met. Her best friend is closeted professional partner Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr); her sister Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen) transitioned some years earlier and lives among the “Sunshine Ladies” in Kingston’s unglamorous storm-water gullies.

When a teenage girl goes missing and a Met detective, Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie), arrives to pursue his own overlapping case, she tugs at threads that unravel Jamaica’s criminal underworld and old-money elite, all ingeniously tangled with post-colonial legacies of violence and the slave trade.

In case it isn’t already obvious, this isn’t Death in Paradise – although Lawrance laughs that “filming in Guadeloupe does sound like a nice gig”. She did film on location in Jamaica, which lent authenticity to the portrayal of Caribbean lives in the drama – a more nuanced one than the juxtaposed clichés of sun-kissed beaches, tropical cocktails and Bob Marley v guns, gangs and ganja. It was also something of a homecoming for Lawrance, whose mother, a hospital clinical technician, arrived in the UK from Jamaica at 17. Lawrance, born and raised in Wembley, hasn’t been back since she was three. “I was raised culturally Jamaican, so filming there contextualised so much for me,” she says. “It helped me to understand my mum and myself, as a Londoner who sometimes feels at odds with her British heritage.

“Being raised in a country where the majority of people look like you in the media affirms your identity – that doesn’t happen when you grow up here. I’ve always felt very proud of Jamaica, fascinated to understand this land and people that created a culture touching all four corners of the Earth. I’d love to spend significant time in Jamaica in my future, but not as a tourist in the areas where only expats live. It’s on my mind, how you engage in the community and give back.”

Lawrance doesn’t do victims. July, the enslaved woman she played in 2018’s Andrea Levy adaptation The Long Song, eventually transcends her status; Mr Loverman’s Maxine defies expectations to pursue a career in fashion; Time’s Abi will not be cowed by her fellow inmates’ hostility or a life behind bars. But Millie’s agency and drive are striking, even in such company.

“A lot of what drives Millie subconsciously is trauma and guilt for all the abuse that Hibiscus suffered [from their conservative, religious mother],” says Lawrance. “There is a thread of caring for those failed by their parents, and joining the Met was her way of trying to make things right while bringing some structure to her behaviour, not always that successfully.

“It’s so inspiring to see a woman who, in the face of all of her trauma, has not assimilated and doesn’t go out of her way to ingratiate herself or make other people feel comfortable. In fact, she does the opposite because she knows herself. Our director would tell me off for being too nice, because my instincts are to include people. But for those reasons, she’s a very empowering character. I could use a bit more of Millie’s directness in my own life.”

Not that she is a shrinking violet. Lawrance took control of her destiny at a young age, acting in school plays at six, and at 11 persuading her secondary school to open up a drama club for younger students. “There was no back-up plan, it was all or nothing,” she says.

In reality, this has meant sacrifices, whether it was messing about outside with friends, playing school netball or attending her best friend’s wedding. “But being sure of what I wanted was a privilege,” she says. “I put a lot of energy into making sure things worked out.”

With the support of her sixth-form drama teacher, she got into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2012. Did she enjoy her time there, considering in 2020 the school labelled itself “institutionally racist”?

“I wasn’t so aware of race and class until I got to drama school,” she acknowledges. “My primary and secondary schools were fairly diverse and my friends were from around the world. Then at drama school people started talking about casting brackets… in my third year I played a maid, an enslaved person, a campaigner for Barack Obama. I started to understand how the industry might see me.

“Class plays a massive part as well, especially through nepotism. It’s really frustrating when you get a part you’ve worked really hard for, only for people to say, ‘Oh, you only got it because of wokeism or diversity policies.’ It is hard navigating different perceptions and presumptions, but I’ve got to validate myself, and Millie’s really helped with that.”

That validation also applies to the series’ Jamaican queer and trans characters, who live in a nation where same-sex intercourse means ten years in prison: Hibiscus is clear that she needs to be accepted, not saved. Lawrance was surprised and heartened by the degree of allyship and safe spaces she found for the trans community in Kingston. And she is no less proud of the show’s spiritual cousin, Mr Loverman, which posed a parallel challenge to those in both her homelands who might dismiss queerness as either fad or aberration.

These are worlds seldom, if ever, depicted with such complexity on primetime

British television. For all that, Lawrance cautions against complacency. “There are too many shows with black female leads, like Champion or Riches, getting cancelled. I’m over the moon to be a part of these projects, but I’m interested to see where they go. Get Millie Black has the potential to do more, but will it?

“Variety makes the world beautiful and some of our popular channels like to have the appearance of variety, but we see these waves of diverse shows a lot and the real support for the long-standing careers of black writers, showrunners, producers, isn’t there. Even in the past 18 months, I’ve been on jobs with one Asian person and one black person in a crew of 200. There’s a long way to go.”

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Get Millie Black will begin airing on Channel 4 at 9pm on Wednesday 5th March.

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