‘Lessons in Chemistry’ star Aja Naomi King on getting to explore Harriet’s ‘multiplicity’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Of the changes Apple TV+’s “Lessons in Chemistry” makes from Bonnie Garmus‘ identically titled novel on which it’s based, the reimagination of Harriet Sloane is perhaps the biggest one. In the 2022 bestseller, Harriet is a housewife in her mid-50s with two adult children who’s trapped in an abusive marriage and babysits Elizabeth’s daughter while Elizabeth pursues a career in chemistry. On the eight-part limited series developed by Lee Eisenberg, she, played by Aja Naomi King, is a much younger Black woman with two young children and a loving husband who befriends Elizabeth (Brie Larson) after the death of her friend and Elizabeth’s lover Calvin (Lewis Pullman). What’s more, she’s a legal aide and an aspiring lawyer who uses her expertise in the legal field to try to block the construction of a freeway that threatens to gentrify her predominantly Black neighborhood of Sugar Hill.
When King was approached by Eisenberg to play Harriet after first auditioning for a completely different role on the show, she wasn’t sure what to make of the intended changes to the character. But it didn’t take long before she was won over by Eisenberg’s vision. “When he just started talking about what he wanted to do with this [story] and [how he wanted to] kind of expand the world in this really incredible way, to offer up a fuller point of view of that time period and not deny, I think, very necessary representation during that time period and… honor that relationship, still, between [Elizabeth and Harriet], I was really blown away,” King tells Gold Derby during a recent webchat (watch the full exclusive video interview above). “He talked so passionately about it and was so collaborative in terms of just really showing all of Harriet, from her marriage [to] her ambition [to] her version of motherhood. I really found it so compelling — and, of course, I wanted to be involved.”
SEE Dear Emmy voters: Please don’t overlook Aja Naomi King’s searing ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ performance
In order to prepare for her role, King worked closely with the show’s cultural consultant, Dr. Shamell Bell, to get a grasp on life in the 1950s and ’60s, which is when the show largely takes place. “It was a lot of just trying to kind of embody what it was to be a Black woman during this time, especially when perception… still is so important — how people perceive you and how that kind of changes how you behave and how you hold yourself,” the actor shares. “I wanted [Harriet] to have a certain vocal quality, I wanted her to have a certain kind of energy in the spaces that she entered because… she’s such a force of nature. She is someone that is, regardless of the world around her, going to demand to be respected; she’s going to demand to just be treated a certain way and she’s going to hold not only herself but others to a certain standard that kind of belies her core belief that she can do something.”
Harriet’s incessant drive often leads to tension between her and her husband, Charlie (Paul James), whose main concern is his family’s well-being. Because he works overtime in order to ensure it, Harriet has put her legal career on hold so that she can look after their children. While her inability to pursue her professional ambitions has induced a lingering frustration in Harriet, that frustration, notably, neither causes her marriage to crumble nor prevents her from making strides.
“She’s not some frustrated, downtrodden [person]. She’s had her knots — all the things that she wanted to accomplish ended up being put on the sidelines in service of her husband’s needs or her family’s needs. But she still prevails — she has this resiliency to her,” King says. “I love that we got to see that in those scenes when she gets to talk about things not going in the order that she wanted them to go, not being able to achieve the things that she wanted when she was capable of achieving them and that struggle, but [that] the struggle was never going to stop her and that she could, like, love her children and know that she’s stronger because of them, but also still desire this other thing, and [that] that’s okay. We get to understand her multiplicity, that she has many emotions and many desires — and yes, they’re conflicting, but it’s all inside of her.”
In our chat, King also discusses saying goodbye to hit ABC series “How to Get Away with Murder,” on which she played ambitious, overachieving law student Michaela Pratt and which wrapped production on its sixth and final season in February 2020, just one month before Hollywood productions began shutting down due to the coronavirus pandemic. “When we were finishing that show, we were all feeling so good about what we had accomplished, because we felt like we told the story and we felt like we told the story well, like we honored our characters and we honored our viewership — because I hate it when shows end and they were cut short and those actors didn’t get that sense of… closure,” the actor highlights. “And we had that closure… I’m just glad we got to tell our story in full.”
PREDICT the 2024 Emmy nominees by July 17
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?