Oscar nominee Ruth Negga has told RTÉ Entertainment that she refused to give in to the pressure that came with portraying real-life hero Mildred Loving in the film Loving because the African-American's story meant so much to her.
The former Love/Hate star is among this year's Best Actress Oscar nominees for her performance opposite Joel Edgerton in the Jeff Nichols-directed film, which tells the true story of an illegal inter-racial marriage in the US state of Virginia in the 1950s.
Richard and Mildred Loving eloped to Washington DC in 1958 but on their return home to Virginia they were arrested. They were sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for 25 years, on condition that they left Virginia. Their case eventually reached the US Supreme Court, which in 1967 overturned the Lovings' convictions and ruled that state laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
"I fell in love with this couple so much that I think I actually made it my business to put aside the pressure and perceived responsibility of playing a real woman and one such as Mildred," said the Irish-Ethiopian actress.
"I really got to the point where I would've been furious with myself if I let that debilitate my performance or hinder it in any way. So I kind of pushed that to the side."
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Negga described it as "our collective shame" that more people do not know the Lovings' story.
"I only know about it because I took an interest in the bizarre laws of anti-miscegenation - legislation that prevented people of colour from marrying white people in certain states in America. And then I only found out about them as three words: Loving v Virginia. I didn't know anything about the couple behind it."
"For some reason their story has been neglected by history, sort of sidelined," she continued. "I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that they were very quiet activists. I don't think they set out to be activists; they set out to right a wrong. They had been wronged.
"I don't think they were political activists; I think they were human activists. And all they were really doing was lobbying for their right to go home, which is extraordinary when you think about that."
Loving is released in Irish cinemas on Friday as the buzz about Negga's Oscar nomination continues to build.
"We wanted to tell the greatest love story never told," she said. "The greatest American love story maybe - I think it might be in the running for it. So that's a pretty big idea, told in a deceptively low-key kind of way."
