‘Chevalier’ Screenwriter on Presenting the Opposite of ‘Bridgerton’ Colorblind Casting

thewrap.com:

their feature film, “Chevalier,” which tracks Joseph Bologne’s (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) life at the French court. “It felt like a tall tale,” Robinson told TheWrap.

She first came to discover Bologne’s life after reading Gabriel Banat’s biography on him and crafted a script from there. It was Robinson’s script that emotionally resonated with both Williams and star Samara Weaving. “Stephanie Robinson’s writing really is what made me want to jump at it and push to be in it,” Weaving said. “I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of this story.” For Williams, who was born in Jamaica and traveled to England, there was an additional personal element to the story. “So much of his [Bologne’s] personal life and the obstacles and the hurdles, and the challenges that he encountered along the way felt familiar.

I identified with them,” he said.What stuck out to everyone involved wasn’t just that Bologne’s life has been erased, both because of the passage of time and a concerted effort by the Emperor Napoleon to destroy Bologne’s music, was how relevant the story felt to today. “History does repeat itself,” said Robinson. “That sounds like a fortune cookie and incredibly trite, but it’s true.

We do a very good job as humans in not remembering our past and locking it up.” For Robinson and Williams, in particular, they didn’t take it lightly being Black creatives telling a story about a Black composer. “I recognized in Joseph’s response to that set of circumstances is to exert a sense of ambition on the world in which you find yourself, a sense of striving, trying to be excellent in the hope that you will ultimately find your rightful place in that particular social order,” said Williams.With that sense of ambition being paramount to the.