The actress is back in a starring role after an ordeal on the Fox drama that began with a serious illness.
A year ago, Nicole Beharie never imagined that “Miss Juneteenth,” a small family drama celebrating African-American beauty and freedom, would be released just as another historic moment was unfolding. In fact, she hadn’t really considered Juneteenth — which honors the day the Emancipation Proclamation was read to slaves in Texas — at all before starring in the film. “I knew about the holiday, but I wasn’t celebrating it,” she admitted.
Beharie plays Turquoise, a former beauty queen-turned-bartender struggling to pay the bills and navigate her teenage daughter’s fierce independence. The role inspired the actress to reflect on what liberation means in her own life — from wearing her natural hair on set to speaking freely. “I didn’t think I was allowed to do that,” she continued. “Black women have always had to choke it down.”
But as Beharie, 35, fondly discussed the writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples’s moving narrative and the myriad black voices claiming justice, she declared, “The veil is lifting.”
From her serene Georgia getaway, where she escaped right before Covid-19 hit New York City, the actress, perhaps best known for her starring role as Abbie Mills on the Fox series “Sleepy Hollow,” a modernized adaptation of Washington Irving’s classic tale, candidly discussed the reason for her abrupt departure from that mystery thriller in 2016, shocking her fans. It led to a frustratingly sporadic career marked by much smaller roles in “Monsters and Men” and “Black Mirror.”
“I lostout on a lot of jobs and opportunities because of how somebody labeled me,” she said.
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation:
You couldn’t have picked a better time for “Miss Juneteenth” to come out. What drew you to it?
Channing wrote a beautiful script and wanted us all to wear natural hair. There’s not a lot of makeup, no designer bags, no massive injustice, no exceptionalism. The characters are all trying their best to navigate life.
This will be my first year celebrating Juneteenth and what it means for people to honor a freedom that came late as we all come into greater consciousness now.
The movie also celebrates black beauty and tradition. How do you think the social media era has shaped how we consider that today?
On one hand, there’s a lot of pressure to aspire toward an unattainable version of black beauty.
