“The American Society of Magical Negroes” actress Anli Bogan gives her thoughts about the movie’s script and describes her character Lizzie’s relationship with Aren played by star actor Justice Smith in her interview.
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00:00 It was very funny immediately when I read it. It seemed pretty thoughtful,
00:07 pretty relevant. I don't know that I've really read anything similar to it and I
00:18 think my role, like Lizzie the character, she stood out to me pretty
00:23 immediately because it's hard for me to find roles that I guess I feel like
00:31 someone wrote this for someone like me. Usually it feels like there's a little
00:36 more imagination that has to happen but it felt really, I resonated a lot with
00:42 with the characters. I do think there's this belief she holds on to
00:48 which is like if I do go the extra mile, I know I have to work harder than
00:52 everybody else to be recognized. But if I just keep, if I just work as hard as
00:58 possible, even if I'm not seen as an equal, I'll be able to elevate myself to
01:03 a point where I I'm getting to have more autonomy and more control over my life.
01:09 I think they're both very sensitive people and so it's maybe one of those
01:14 moments where you kind of, you feel right away someone else's is also sensitive
01:20 and you can connect kind of quickly. So I think they have that initial meeting.
01:24 They end up working together in a corporate office which is a pretty
01:29 loaded environment and that they can't really be themselves around each other.
01:38 I think, yeah, they have to be professional. So I think they find
01:44 moments throughout the film to connect and it's clear that they have something
01:49 special but they've got a lot of obstacles between them.
01:54 Humor to me, especially the way it functions in this script, is it's
02:01 essentially a way of representing pretty specific experiences that don't
02:05 even always feel like satire to me. But it's kind of like taking a
02:12 spoonful of sugar with medicine where it kind of, I think it presents a more
02:18 comfortable medium for just for an audience to listen to, to relate to.
02:30 Justice is amazing. Justice is very easy to fall in love with on screen.
02:35 So he's kind of, this is not his first movie at all, so he's been not like
02:44 fully taking me under his wing but he's answered some questions for me
02:49 and I feel very looked after.