No Oscar for Ruth but She Still Dazzled Wearing a Red Valentino Dress.
Ruth Negga was stunning when she appeared on the red carpet at last night’s Oscars wearing a red floor-length Valentino dress. Notably absent was long-term boyfriend and fellow actor Dominic Cooper, who did join Ruth later at the ceremony. The couple had planned not to walk the red carpet together to avoid media scrutiny of their relationship.
The Irish-Ethiopian actress was up for the Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Mildred Loving in Loving, the film based on the true story of an interracial couple’s battle to have their marriage recognised in the US state of Virginia in the 1960s.
This year the competition was particularly fierce; other strong contenders in the category were Natalie Portman for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie, Emma Stone in the widely-acclaimed La La Land, Isabelle Huppert in Elle, and Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins. And it was Stone’s name that was called out on stage.
Ruth Looking Away:Cannes, France – 16 MAY 2016 – Ruth Negga departs from the ‘Loving’ Premiere at the annual 69th Cannes Film Festival
Ruth may have lost out this time, but the nomination alone by the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences puts Ruth into a small group of Hollywood elite who can command big bucks and have their pick of roles.
Since Loving screened at Cannes last May, it’s been a dizzying whirlwind of publicity appearances for the 35-year-old, with a Vogue magazine cover, magazine interviews and the obligatory talk show circuit, to fit into her schedule.
Meanwhile, between interviews Ruth has been filming for season 2 of Preacher, the US television series based on comic book where she plays badass Tulip O’Hare, starring alongside real-life beau Dominic Cooper.
The Hollywood Reporter has described Ruth as a definition of a ‘decade-long overnight success’. Since graduating from drama studies at Trinity College Dublin, the Limerick-raised actress has worked in an eclectic mix of roles in theatre, movies and television.
LOS ANGELES – JUN 6: Ruth Negga at the Warcraft Global Premiere at TCL Chinese Theater IMAX on June 6, 2016 in Los Angeles, CA
She was the National Theatre London’s first black Ophelia and played a young Shirley Bassey to critical acclaim in a BBC biopic of the singer.
Ruth is immediately recognisable to Love/Hate fans as Rosie, girlfriend of Robert Sheehan’s Darren, from the first two seasons of the hit RTÉ crime drama. Other television roles have included parts in E4’s Misfits and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Annie Ryan of The Corn Exchange, who directed Ruth in a production of Lolita at Dublin’s Peacock Theatre, described Ruth as ‘a brilliant chameleon’ for her rare ability to completely embody any character she takes on.
One of those who recognised Ruth’s star quality early on was A Date for Mad Mary’s Darren Thornton who directed Ruth in 2004 RTÉ mini-drama Love is the Drug.
Ruth was just 22 and had recently graduated from Trinity when she took the lead role in Lolita. When Darren saw her performance, he knew instantly that he wanted her for the part of Lisa Sheerin, ‘an exotic stunning girl in this very drab world that is Drogheda’.
‘She had a magnetism, you were immediately drawn to her. She’s so interesting on screen, you encounter that [quality] very rarely… and she had it in spades.’
‘As soon as you saw Ruth it was very clear she was going to be a big star. Everybody felt that at the time.’
LOS ANGELES – OCT 20: Ruth Negga at the “Loving” Premiere at Samuel Goldwyn Theater on October 20, 2016 in Beverly Hills, CA
Going on to appear in Neil Jordan’s sublime Breakfast on Pluto as the best friend of Cillian Murphy’s transgender Kitten, Ruth was nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA).
Ruth Negga was born to an Irish nurse and an Ethiopian doctor in 1982. When conflict broke out four years later Ruth and her mother returned to Ireland, with her father planning to join them at a later time. However, tragically her father didn’t get to leave, and he died in a car crash. At age 18 Ruth returned to Ethiopia where she paid a poignant visit to her father’s grave.
Growing up in the Dooradoyle suburb of Limerick city, Ruth has said she never experienced racism until she moved to London as a teenager. ‘People are shocked when they hear that. In Dooradoyle? When people ask me, I think they are looking for something that wasn’t there. You have to take a person’s word for it. People have very unique lives’, she told Donald Clarke in an Irish Times interview earlier this year.
LOS ANGELES – OCT 13: Ruth Negga at the People’s One to Watch Party at the E.P. & L.P on October 13, 2016 in Los Angeles, CA
Expanding on her experience, Ruth explained to Gaby Wood for Vogue that: ‘When you’re a kid, you’re just you, aren’t you? It was when I moved to England that I felt it, because I was Irish and black.’
On the Late Late Show in December 2016, she told host Ryan Tubridy that as there weren’t many black people in Ireland at that time she had ‘a sort of exoticism’ and she grew up with a large extended family and felt ‘very adored, loved and protected’. However, she qualified her comments, saying: ‘That’s my story. I’d hate to speak for other people’.
Acting was always what she wanted to do, Ruth has said. Speaking to The Irish Times’ Donald Clarke back in 2010, she said: ‘There was never any doubt in my mind, ever, that I would do this’. Describing her ambition as ‘blind’ in a ‘really kind of naïve way’, Ruth said then that her long-term plan was longevity.
Darren says the actress, while she was ‘incredibly warm and gregarious and great fun’ on set, did take her work very seriously and was ‘always incredibly prepared’, which he believes ‘had a lot to do with her theatre training.’
‘She was a very focused, very disciplined actor. I tend to shoot loads and loads of takes, but Ruth would always get it on the first take or two.’
However, despite this level of discipline and ambition, Ruth told Lesley Goldberg in the Hollywood Reporter last October she has not been ‘aggressive in [her] pursuit of being a star’.
Then the role of Mildred in Loving came along – and it marked a turning point for Ruth. Already familiar with the story of the inter-racial couple who battled for the right to have their marriage recognised in 1960s Virginia, when she heard that a film based on their story was in the works, she was determined to land the part of Mildred.
NEW YORK – NOV 28, 2016: Ruth Negga is seen on November 28, 2016, in New York City.
During a press conference after the screening of Loving at Cannes last summer, Ruth turned to director Jeff Nichols, reminding him that her agent had called him every week for two years. That persistence paid off.
The role was a milestone, a ‘before and after’ kind of job for her, Ruth told Vogue’s Gaby Wood for Vogue in December.
Indeed, her beautifully nuanced, powerfully quiet portrayal of Mildred is profoundly moving and, for this writer, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.
For Nichols, who directed Matthew McConaughey in his career-defining role in 2012’s Mud, Ruth’s turn as Mildred Loving was ‘uncanny’. He told Vogue: ‘I’ve witnessed some pretty amazing performances in my life. And you know it when you see it. It was uncanny what we were watching happening in front of us’.
Actress Ruth Negga at the 2017 Palm Springs Film Festival Awards Gala. January 2, 2017
Commenting earlier on Ruth’s nomination, Darren is not at all surprised. ‘It just happens that two of those [interesting roles], Preacher and Loving has sort of exploded at the one time, and now suddenly she’s part of a bigger conversation.’ He adds: ‘Ruth has ‘always had it… and it’s taken the world a little while to catch up.’
Words by Ruth Doris
Featured Image: Oscars 2017, Courtesy of Maison Valentino