Thandiwe Newton covers the latest issue of British Vogue, and no, that’s not a typo.
As the British “Westworld” star tells the magazine, she is no longer going by Thandie, the name she’s used ever since her actual name, Thandiwe, was misspelled with the “W” extracted in her first screen credit.
In fact, all her future screen credits will be for Thandiwe, which translates to “beloved” in the Shona language of Zimbabwe, where her mother was a princess.
“That’s my name. It’s always been my name,” she explains. “I’m taking back what’s mine.”
On Twitter, Newton explained that her name got changed for the movies after the director of her first film asked to use her real name for her character, but then used the “nickname” in the credits to differentiate the character from the star.
The director of my first film asked to use my actual name for the character – because it was authentic and beautiful. I felt flattered and agreed. And then in the credits they used my ‘nickname’ to differentiate from the character name. They stole my name. And I’m taking it back. https://t.co/O4jPtxj06D
— Thandiwe Newton OBE (@ThandiweNewton) April 5, 2021
In the extensive interview, she also discusses how her feelings on acting have come to change over the years.
“I find that acting takes more and more away from me,” she admits, “because I’m more connected to myself than I’ve ever been, whereas before I was delighted to get an excuse to go off to another personality. I couldn’t wait to get away from myself, truly, I had such low self-esteem. Acting was where I felt whole.”
One reason for those feelings of low self-esteem came from being sexually abused by a director when she was a teenage actress.
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“There’s a moment where the ghost of me changed, you know,” she says, “and it was then, it was 16. He derailed me from myself utterly. I was traumatized. It was a kind of PTSD for sure. I was so distraught and appalled that a director had abused a young actress, and that it was happening elsewhere, minors getting abused and how f**ked up it was. I was basically waiting for someone to come along and say, ‘Well, what shall we do about this?”
Her experience, she believes, has given her “a seventh sense for abuse and abusers, which I believe is one of the reasons why I was rejected a lot in Hollywood. I’ll talk about it until the cows come home, because I know I’ll be helping someone.”
See the full feature in the May issue of British Vogue available via digital download and on newsstands Friday April 9.
