Superpower

Her acting style is instinctive, rooted in a blend of raw talent, the technical skills she developed during drama school (Ackie attended London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) and the experiences she has had since. “I don’t do a lot of backstory. I’m more about tone and rhythm and vibe,” she shares, with a quiet confidence. “I just have to focus on what animal emotion belongs in each scene and then do that.” So, I ask, what happened when she was tasked with embodying the icon Whitney Houston in the 2022 musical biopic?

“My approach was so different. It wasn’t laid-back. I’m normally a laid-back girlie.” The pressure to get this moment ‘right’ was overwhelming. To pre-empt any negativity, Ackie deleted her Instagram account. “That was not my best self,” she says of how she felt at the time. For her, this was a defining moment in her career, with incredibly high stakes.

When it comes to deciding how much of herself to make public, she draws inspiration from her peers – actors and writers like Saoirse Ronan and Michaela Coel, who have intentionally stepped back and retained some sense of privacy with their personal lives. “Saoirse Ronan is one, an amazing actress; two, you don’t know anything about her until she needs to come out with a film. She is so secure in herself.” Ackie laughs, “You’ll never find me on that Instagram thing, DeuxMoi. Trust me, they’d be disappointed.” A departure from her childhood goals, it isn’t a desire for fame that drives Ackie now, but a passion for storytelling and getting to the truth. “I think there’s such a misconception that fame means more freedom; it means less. It means isolation.”

Working with Kravitz was a transformative experience for Ackie, helping her stand deeper in her power and creative voice. There was an alchemy between the two. “We instantly connected. And it felt right. I can never put my finger on why, with projects like that. It’s just a gut feeling. The best feeling is when you’re like, ‘I don’t know how this is going to do, I don’t know how this is going to be received, I just want to make it.’” Working in Mexico was an added bonus. She describes the filming process as being “back-to-school vibes… with tequila”. They all lived and worked on set. “It was just like nerdy theater kids, make-believing in the most beautiful place in the world. It was really a community with one set goal. We were there to tell the story.”

The power of community was particularly important in tackling the movie’s more harrowing themes and scenes. Towards the end of the film, there is a rape scene involving multiple cast members. It manages to make its point without feeling gratuitous. “That’s probably one of my proudest scenes because we, men and women, all of us came together and were like, OK, let’s do this. Let’s put our all into it and show people. That brought all of us as a cast so close together. We were there for each other.”

Ackie’s future ambitions for her career extend beyond acting. Currently, she’s writing a project called Cash Pigs, which delves into the world of financial domination. And inspired by her time with Kravitz, she’s also considering a step into directing. But she has a wealth of dynamic roles coming up before that. She’s just wrapped filming on Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club and is about to dive into a new project with Boots Riley, where she’ll star alongside Demi Moore, Keke Palmer and LaKeith Stanfield. The next project to land, though, is Mickey 17, a sci-fi black comedy from Parasite director Bong Joon Ho.

“I lucked out the year I did Blink Twice and Mickey 17 back to back. I was over the moon because, to me, if I could work with people of that caliber for the rest of my career, I’d be a happy woman.” When she received the call from Joon-ho, her excitement was palpable. “He is such a genius; I can’t even explain it. I never would have dreamed I’d have a conversation with him, let alone star in a film [of his].” She speaks with similar enthusiasm of her co-stars and how it all came together. “Rob [Pattinson] is a dream. He’s so good, so good in this film. What I love is that Bong never does something twice. You can’t really compare this film to any of his other work. It is so different. It’s bombastic, funny, charming.”

Despite the eminence of Ackie’s résumé, it was only last year that she was nominated for a Bafta Rising Star award, sparking conversations about whether she’s had her ‘breakout moment’ yet.

“I just laugh because sometimes it’s frustrating, but I also understand the limitations of thinking of success this way. I’ve had to re-evaluate what success means constantly,” she reflects. I tell her that it was her standout performance in Master of None in 2021, playing Alicia, who is married to Lena Waithe’s character, that provided my first introduction to her work. The series gave a style of slow, intimate storytelling that she hopes to pursue further.

“That’s where my heart is. I’m really hungry for more projects like that. I don’t think there’s a lot of space for projects like that – queer ones, intimate ones, quiet ones.” She’s also eager to explore the realms of sci-fi and period drama in the future – “where I'm not playing a slave, obviously,” she says of the latter.

Away from work, one of Ackie’s favorite ways to decompress is by creating ‘ugly’ art through painting and pottery. She embraces the process as a way to shed the pressures of perfectionism, focusing on making intentionally imperfect things. “I’m not trained in anything but acting, so when I create something it’s definitely rough around the edges,” she says, with a rebellious chuckle.

Ackie treasures these quiet moments away from the chaos of the industry – a refreshing, non-conformist attitude in a world that equates constant visibility with success. Reflecting on her homebody tendencies, the ultimate dream, she considers, would be to “only work for one film a year. And then live the rest of my life in absolute peace.” First though, there is that slate of hotly anticipated projects on the horizon.

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