‘Passing’ as white: How making new film helped explain Rebecca Hall’s family history
Rebecca Hall was in her mid-20s when she first started to understand her complicated family history. The British actress-turned-director says most would look at her fair complexion and dark hair and see “English rose”, she says – but looks are never the end of a person’s story.
Hall, who has appeared in films including Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Frost/Nixon and Holmes & Watson, is the daughter of the late renowned British film and theatre director Peter Hall and the American opera singer Maria Ewing.
Her maternal grandfather, she learned, was a light-skinned black man who “passed” for white for the majority of his life.
Tessa Thompson (left) and Ruth Negga star in Rebecca Hall’s Passing. Pic: Netflix
It was about 13 years ago, when Hall picked up the 1929 novel Passing, by Nella Larsen, that she started to consider her own mixed-race heritage and why it had never really been spoken about in her family.
Set in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York, Larsen’s exploration of race and the practice of “passing”, which was not uncommon for light-skinned black people wanting to escape racial segregation and discrimination in that era, struck a nerve.
Hall pictured with Negga (left) and Tessa Thompson (right) at a screening of the film in New York earlier this year, and below with her mother, Maria Ewing, in 2010. Pics: Andy Kropa/Invision/AP and Alex Berliner/BEI/Shutterstock
Finding out about her own history led to Hall adapting the novel for the big screen; the story follows two black women, Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Oscar nominee Ruth Negga), who could both “pass” as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the colour line.
“I think so many people are not aware that it happened because it’s a historical event that was necessarily hidden,” Hall tells Sky News.
“So a lot of families, it’s hidden even within those families, including my own. My grandfather was African-American and he passed white for most of his life. And that is a fact that I’ve only really fully learned details of in the last year or so.”
Before she read Larsen’s novel, Hall says she had no context or even any way of describing how her grandfather had lived his life, and why. “So it gave me an enormous amount of context and understanding and compassion and empathy for the choice.”
Passing tells the story of former childhood friends Clare and Irene, who are reunited one summer and Irene discovers Clare has been passing as white; she is even married to an overt racist (played by Alexander Skarsgård).
The film uses the notion of passing to explore not just racial identity but gender and the responsibilities of motherhood, sexuality and the performance of femininity.
Hall on set with Thompson and Negga, and below with Andre Holland, who plays Irene’s husband Brian. Pics: Emily V Aragones/ Netflix
It is not about critiquing those who chose to pass, says Hall, but about critiquing “a society that, in any way, judges a person’s construct of themselves… there’s the things we think we believe, the person we think we ought to be, that society wants us to be. And there’s the thing we really want to be, that we desire to be. And sometimes that can be a huge conflict zone, and it means sometimes that we’re hiding our true selves.”
Passing is Hall’s directorial debut and it has been many years in the making. “I faced problems both within the industry – I came up against blocks trying to get it made – but I also came up against personal blocks,” she says.
“[The screenplay] sat in a drawer for quite a long time because I just didn’t have the confidence. I felt like it was too ambitious… and I just didn’t believe anyone would let me make it.”
Hall feared that some in the industry would question her suitability for telling this story.
“The pitch meetings were particularly poignant,” she says. “I ended up getting very emotional every time I was pitching it to some financier because they would invariably ask me, you know, ‘why on earth are you making this?’
Subscribe to the Backstage podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
“But I feel like I’m this sort of walking example of what this film’s all about. You know, everyone looks at me and has a whole set of assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. Or they’re true but it’s not the end of the story.
“Forever, everyone’s looked at me and known that I’m Peter Hall’s daughter and I’m part of a British theatrical lineage, and [I’m thought of as] ‘English rose’, and that’s sort of the end of the story. And the fact that within my own story there’s… so many other contradictory and elusive things sort of points out the absurdity of it all.”
Hall has shot the film in black and white, something she would not budge on. “In a very soundbitey kind of way, it just felt like the best way to make a movie about colourism was to take all the colour out of it,” she says.
“But I think more specifically what I mean by that is, I think sometimes to understand truths about humanity, we need poetry. We don’t necessarily need complete reality, sometimes the abstraction helps.
Negga as Clare and Thompson as Irene in Passing. Pic: Netflix
Alexander Skarsgard plays Clare’s racist husband John. Pic: Netflix
“I think black and white takes these concepts and sort of highlights that we’re so busy putting everyone into these categories, when no one can be reduced to a single thing. Like, you” – she gestures to me – “can’t be reduced to just ‘woman’ or, you know, ‘white’, or whatever it is… the great irony about black and white film is it’s not black and white, it’s grey. And this is existing in the grey areas, actually.”
Making the film opened up a lot of conversations between Hall and her mother that had previously been left unsaid.
“She’s extremely proud and she’s extremely emotional about it,” says Hall. “She said that she felt it had given her and her father who’s no longer with us a sort of release in a way, like an ability to talk about something that up until this point felt like it couldn’t be addressed.”
She adds: “I hope, sort of in the broadest sense, the thing that people take away [from the film] is, thinking about what the legacy of a life lived in hiding is. And that doesn’t just mean racial hiding, it means all the ways in which we’re not showing up for ourselves completely. And how we can’t because of how much society imposes something – especially black women.”
Passing is out now on Netflix
Tom Cruise has paid tribute to Val Kilmer, wishing his Top Gun co-star “well on the next journey”.
Cruise, speaking at the CinemaCon film event in Las Vegas on Thursday, asked for a moment’s silence to reflect on the “wonderful” times shared with the star, whom he called a “dear friend”.
Kilmer, who died of pneumonia on Tuesday aged 65, rocketed to fame starring alongside Cruise in the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun, playing Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky, a rival fighter pilot to Cruise’s character Maverick.
Tom Cruise said ‘I wish you well on the next journey’. Pic: AP
Val Kilmer in 2017. Pic: AP
His last part was a cameo role in the 2022 blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
Cruise, on stage at Caesars Palace on Thursday, said: “I’d like to honour a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer. I can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how grateful and honoured I was when he joined Top Gun and came back later for Top Gun: Maverick.
“I think it would be really nice if we could have a moment together because he loved movies and he gave a lot to all of us. Just kind of think about all the wonderful times that we had with him.
“I wish you well on the next journey.”
The moment of silence followed a string of tributes from Hollywood figures including Cher, Francis Ford Coppola, Antonio Banderas and Michelle Monaghan.
Kilmer’s daughter Mercedes told the New York Times on Wednesday that the actor had died from pneumonia.
Tom Cruise at Caesars Palace on Thursday. Pic: AP
Diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, Kilmer discussed his illness and recovery in his 2020 memoir Your Huckleberry and Amazon Prime documentary Val.
He underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatments for the disease and also had a tracheostomy which damaged his vocal cords and permanently gave him a raspy speaking voice.
Kilmer played Batman in the 1995 film Batman Forever and received critical acclaim for his portrayal of rock singer Jim Morrison in the 1991 movie The Doors.
Read more from Sky News:
Tributes to ‘genius’ Kilmer
Richest billionaires named
Springsteen’s seven new albums
He also starred in True Romance and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, as well as playing criminal Chris Shiherlis in Michael Mann’s 1995 movie Heat and Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone.
In 1988 he married British actress Joanne Whalley, whom he met while working on fantasy adventure Willow.
The couple had two children before divorcing in 1996.
Bruce Springsteen is to release seven albums of mostly unheard material this summer.
The US singer said the songs, written and re-recorded between 1983 and 2018, were being made public after he began completing “everything I had in my vault” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a short video posted on Instagram, Springsteen said the albums were “records that were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released”.
The 83-song collection is being released in a box set called Tracks II: The Lost Albums and goes on sale on 27 June.
Some 74 of the tracks have never been heard before.
Springsteen first teased the release on Wednesday morning with a short social media video accompanied by text which said: “What was lost has been found”.
Tracks II is the follow-up to the star’s first Tracks volume, a four-CD collection of 66 unreleased songs, released in 1998.
Bruce Springsteen at New York’s Carnegie Hall at a tribute to Patti Smith last month. Pic: PA
The New Jersey-born rocker, nicknamed The Boss, last released a studio album in 2022.
Only the Strong Survive was a collection of covers, including songs by Motown and soul artists, such as the Four Tops, The Temptations, The Supremes, Frankie Wilson and Jimmy Ruffin.
The late soul legend Sam Moore, who died in January and was a frequent Springsteen collaborator, sang on two of the tracks.
Read more from Sky News:
Tributes to ‘genius’ Kilmer
Penguin island facing tariffs
Richest billionaires named
Springsteen is coming to the UK in May to launch a two-month tour of Europe with his E Street Band.
The shows will include performances at the Co-op Live in Manchester and Liverpool’s Anfield stadium.
The singer-songwriter has sold more than 140 million records since his debut on the music scene in 1973, according to his website.
Entertainment
Stalker who believed Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas was his aunt avoids jail
A man who stalked Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas for six years has avoided jail.
Kyle Shaw, 37, got a 20-month suspended sentence and a lifetime restraining order on contacting Ballas, her mother, niece, and former partner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he thought Ballas was his aunt and “began a persistent campaign of contact”.
“He believed, and it’s evident from what he was told by his mother, that her late brother was his father,” said prosecutor Nicola Daley.
The court heard there was no evidence he was wrong, and “limited evidence” he was correct.
Ms Daley said Shaw’s messages had accused Ballas of being to blame for the death of her brother, who took his own life in 2003 aged 44.
He also set up social media accounts in his name.
Shaw had pleaded guilty to stalking the former dancer between August 2017 and November 2023 at a hearing in February.
Incidents included following Ballas’s 86-year-old mother, Audrey Rich, while she was shopping and telling her she was his grandmother.
The court heard in messages to Mrs Rich, Shaw had asked: “Where’s my dad?”
Ballas was so worried for her mother’s safety that she moved her from Merseyside to London.
Kyle Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA
In October 2020, Ballas called police after Shaw messaged her and said: “Do you want me to kill myself, Shirley?”
Posts on X included one alongside an image of her home address that warned: “You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.”
Another referenced a book signing and said: “I can’t wait to meet you for the first time Aunty Shirley. Hopefully I can get an autograph.”
The court was told Ballas’s niece Mary Assall, former partner Daniel Taylor and colleagues from Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s Loose Women were also sent messages.
‘I know where you live’
On one occasion in late 2023, Shaw called Mr Taylor and told him he knew where the couple lived and described Ballas’s movements.
The court heard the 64-year-old TV star become wary of socialising and stopped using public transport.
Prosecutor Ms Daley said: “She described having sleepless nights worrying about herself and her family’s safety and being particularly distressed when suggestions were made to her that she and her mother were responsible for her brother taking his own life.”
Ballas has been head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017. Pic: PA
Shaw cried and wiped away tears as he was sentenced on Tuesday.
The judge said the stalking stemmed from his mother telling him Ballas’s brother, David Rich, was his biological father.
“I’m satisfied that your motive for this offending was a desire to seek contact with people you genuinely believed were your family,” he said.
“Whether in fact there’s any truth in that belief is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.”
Shaw pictured at court in February. Pic: PA
Read more from Sky News:
Cast of Beatles films revealed
Tractor crashes into houses in Cheshire
Defence lawyer John Weate said Shaw had been told the story by his mother “in his mid to late teens” and had suffered “complex mental health issues” since he was a child.
He added: “He now accepts that Miss Ballas and her family don’t wish to have any contact with him and, importantly, he volunteered the information that he has no intention of contacting them again.”
Shaw, of Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, also admitted possessing cannabis and was ordered to undertake a rehab programme.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway