Actor Adrian Lester says his role in the film Mary Queen of Scots is helping to address a lack of affluent black and ethnic minority figures in period drama.
The 50-year-old stars as Lord Randolph, while Gemma Chan takes the role of Bess of Hardwick, both of whom were white in real life.
The movie follows an attempt by Mary Stuart, played by Saoirse Ronan, to overthrow her cousin Elizabeth I, played by Margot Robbie.
Lester said the switch would break down perceptions that people of higher social status at the time could not be black.
“I think it’s important because it’s not something that director Josie Rourke has imposed on the period,” he said.
“The picture that I’ve been given of Elizabethan society when Shakespeare was writing his plays is not the one that is really true.
“In this film, yes, Randolph and Queen Elizabeth’s friend played by Gemma Chan wouldn’t have been the colour that they were in history, but Josie is reflecting the truth by augmenting that fact a little bit, but through that she’s representing what Britain would have looked like at the time.”
He said there were many more black people in 16th-century England than was commonly thought: “It’s fact that Elizabeth I decreed that there were too many black people in the country, too many traders, and asked the merchants not to let any more in.
“For that to be true and taken as fact, there must have been a lot of people black people here.”
The actor added that in Shakespeare’s day some black Londoners were buried in expensive velvet, which suggests they were people of standing — “someone who’s middle class who’s black”.
Mary Queen of Scots is out on January 18.
