All hail Paapa Essiedu: The actor breaking barriers on stage and screen

Years ago, when Paapa Essiedu told his mother he wanted to be an actor, she responded the way any parent would. As in, she – Selina – wondered why could he not just do something serious with his life? Like, say, be a doctor. 

‘But with my mum, it never came from a place of judgement,’ says Essiedu. ‘It was more that we grew up f*****g skint and she was a single Black mother with me, a teenage Black boy, in the years when kids were getting stabbed every day. She just wanted me to get a job that would allow me to escape [these] circumstances and she was coming from a perspective that I had to treat it seriously. And that has been reflected in the way I work now. I do take my work seriously.’

Essiedu is speaking over video; his blue cap backwards, in a white T-shirt with a gold chain poking above the collar. If he sounds intense, well, he is not. He has a dry, infectious laugh and, as on screen and on stage, he has a knack for rolling through tough topics with levity. He did this in the role he is best known for: Kwame in Michaela Coel’s superb television drama I May Destroy You. But he also brought his humour and humanity to the recent hit sci-fi series The Lazarus Project, in which he runs through high-concept plotting with a natural bemusement that makes the show at least 17 times better than if someone else was in the lead. 

And, still, his mother’s words hang over everything that he does. She died of cancer when he was in his first year at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in the same year as Coel. His father, Tony, left London–– where Essiedu was born in 1990 – for his native Ghana when Essiedu was a baby and died when his son was just 14. 

Top: Jacket, trousers and trainers, all Louis Vuitton; socks, Falke.

Above: Top, trousers and shoes, all Gucci; socks, Falke.

I ask which of his roles the actor wishes his mum had seen. ‘Well, grief’s a funny thing,’ he says, giggling sweetly at her memory. ‘And I don’t see it as her not having seen me in things. I imagine her watching everything I do. That said, my first job was in a tiny play in the Richmond Orange Tree Theatre that about 30 people saw. It was the first moment I thought: Someone is actually paying me to do this! That is something that I would have loved to share with her in a more literal way.’

And now, Selina’s son is being given the accolade of Soho House’s Trailblazer. What does that word mean to him? ‘I haven’t really thought about that,’ he laughs. ‘What it means to me? That’s hard, because now it sounds like this is what I think I am.’ Humble preface out the way, he thinks a trailblazer is somebody who makes their own way in the world. He cites people like Black British actor Lennie James, who Essiedu performed with on stage at The Old Vic earlier this year. 

‘Once upon a time, he was a trailblazer,’ says Essiedu. ‘And now, he’s just a blazer…’ He pauses, as if to check that makes sense, before continuing because, I think, it does. People like James walked so people like Essiedu could run. ‘I was inspired by his work when I was a teenager and he played a part in the perception of what it means to be a British actor. And what a British actor can look like.’

Earlier this year, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama apologised to Essiedu after the actor said a teacher had shouted the N-word at him in an improvisational class, in which a teacher played a prison officer and his students were prisoners. ‘Guildhall School apologises unreservedly,’ went the apology. ‘The experiences he shares were appalling and unacceptable.’

Yet this instance, among others, are the reason Essiedu once said that all of his career choices are political – simply by virtue of who he is and the colour of his skin. ‘I don’t mean political in that it is about politics,’ he says. ‘But the nature of the space I occupy in our industry is politicised. There is something I’m working against that my peers who don’t come from the same background as me, and who don’t look the same as me, won’t be fighting against. So the choices I make are political by virtue of the fact that I’m the one who’s making them.’

This was exemplified in I May Destroy You; an artistic and social juggernaut of a TV show. Essiedu’s character Kwame was the best friend to Arabella (Coel), supporting her as she dealt with the gruesome aftermath of a sexual assault – something Coel had herself experienced. Then, in episode four, Kwame is raped when a Grindr date goes badly wrong. The series stirred up numerous essential talking points about, for one, consent. ‘Responsibility is always at the forefront of my mind,’ he insists of his roles. 

‘The topics we were dealing with were sensitive and underrepresented on our TV screens, but they weren’t conversations we hadn’t had before. Or things that hadn’t happened to friends of ours, or us – especially in Michaela’s case.’

It was, for want of a less pretentious word, important. ‘That’s another thing I meant by saying that my work felt political,’ Essiedu says. ‘I’m not interested in anything didactic. In things that say, “This is the way the world is and you have to believe us, or f**k off.” A lot of the projects I’ve been involved in end up posing more questions than they offer answers. It makes for a way richer experience.’

Above: Coat and trousers, both Labrum London; shirt, Basic Rights. 

That said, The Lazarus Project (on Sky) is arguably Essiedu’s most important work to date – despite, on paper, being far from his most serious. Sure, before this sci-fi hit he won the coveted Ian Charleson theatre award for young actors in 2016, while in 2021, he was BAFTA-nominated for I May Destroy You. He was also one of the best of a large bunch in the ludicrously violent gangster romp Gangs of London, which is back for a second series in the autumn. Still, for a couple of reasons, his casting as the lead in The Lazarus Project shows how far, and fast, he has come. 

He plays George – an average guy who finds himself stuck in a Groundhog Day-style time loop and is recruited to a team that uses time travel to occasionally save the world. Then his girlfriend is hit by a truck and he has to decide whether or not to blow up the world to save the one he loves. ‘I’m a simple man,’ says Essiedu. ‘So the quantum physics is less interesting for me. My character has very simple motivations and I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t do the same thing if I was put in that position.’ (Essiedu is in a long-term relationship with the actress Rosa Robson.)

Anyway, what’s key here is that his race is a sidebar to the story – as is that of his co-lead Anjli Mohindra. This pleases the actor. ‘I don’t think anyone ever wants to play a stereotype or feel that they’re there to tick the quota box,’ he says. ‘[The casting on that show] proved a point to people who say there just isn’t the talent out there, or that certain types of people should be playing certain types of roles. This is a real “f**k you” to that.’ 

Also, to put it bluntly, you do not cast an actor in a show with that high a budget, that is so integral to a channel’s commercial success, if you do not believe they will draw viewers in. It is the hug of the mainstream – the surest sign you have made it. 

‘Yes, it definitely feels like a sense of validation when people talk to you as if you’ve got the capability to pull a show like that off,’ he nods. ‘But please don’t let that be confused with believing you’ve got the capability to pull it off! Imposter syndrome is very real and even if you can talk the talk, walking the walk is a completely different thing. I don’t often feel like I have arrived — I often find myself thinking: When are they going to realise that they really wanted the other guy?’

It does not sound like he is joking, either. Despite boasting a decade of a career that is only getting stronger, he still seems ever-so-slightly baffled to be where he is. The judges who granted Essiedu the Ian Charleson Award in 2016 noted audiences watching his Hamlet listened to him ‘completely still’; adding, ‘Like all great actors… he made all the lines his own.’

And that is Essiedu’s skill – making the parts so much his own that you cannot imagine anyone else doing them. Joaquin Phoenix has that knack and, like him, it is hard to think of another actor who acts so naturally that you are not entirely sure what is real or not. To be or not to be an actor? Very much to be. Essiedu’s mum must be thrilled.