With assignments submitted and essays completed, the sound of suitcases crackling across the cobblestones echoed through Front Arch on Friday afternoon, as students eagerly made their way home for reading week. Yet tucked away inside the arch, in Regent House, Trinity Law Society (Law Soc) was hosting an event dwelling on life after Trinity and potential for success once the backdrop of the Campanile is but an idealised, nostalgic memory.
Law Soc welcomed Academy Award nominee Ruth Negga to discuss life after College, the world of theatre and the power of drama.
The event made Negga this year’s second recipient of the society’s Praeses Elit Award. The Ethiopia-born actress has made waves in Dublin in recent weeks in the Gate Theatre’s most recent production of Hamlet, in which Negga plays the protagonist. The success of this post-gender casting arrives off the back of Negga’s outstanding performances in Love/Hate, Breakfast on Pluto and, most famously, Loving, for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress.
A packed room, teeming with questions and intent on getting a glimpse of the Limerick native, eagerly awaited Negga’s arrival. She confidently slipped up to the podium before launching into a moving, profound and empowering speech. Negga, a Trinity alumnus with a degree in acting studies, reflected on her time in College as “happy but intense”. She credited her studies with providing her with “a bedrock of knowledge” as she forged a career on stage in the following years.
Most lasting in its impact, Negga explained, was the opportunity her time at Trinity afforded her “to dare”. College, she continued, encouraged her to dare to be different, to dare to explore, to dare to speak out. Negga asserted the power of an individual voice to effect change, something she discovered during her time at Trinity. Urging students to follow suit and speak out, Negga announced that “your silences will not protect you”.
Sitting down with Law Soc auditor Kate Fahy, Negga explored memories of her childhood in Ireland that set such inspiring and encouraging sentiments in stone. Born to an Irish mother and Ethiopian father, Negga described herself as “a bit of an oddity” in 1980s Limerick. Nevertheless, the actress now credits her identity growing up with “prepping myself for life as an outsider”.
Negga found herself drawn to the artistic life from early on. She always knew what her passions were – “there was no moment of epiphany”. Acting, for Negga, is “the art of communication”, and she affirmed the significance of performance within society, not only to entertain but also to spark conversations, to ask questions and to scrutinise all the complexities of the human psyche. Her current role as Hamlet no doubt indented itself on her musings as she reflected that “to explore what it is to be human (…) is what art is”.
As Negga delved into the intricacies of her art, her answers left no doubt as to the authenticity of her love for acting and her appreciation of its capacity to influence society, to shift perspectives and to uncover long-lost treasures of history. Her role as Mildred Loving in Loving testifies to this. When asked about how important it was to tell the true story, Negga affirmed how much of a personal privilege it was for her to get to publicise the case Mildred and Richard Loving. The Virginia couple was arrested in 1958 for having an interracial marriage, a case that eventually led to the historic 1967 anti-discrimination ruling by the Supreme Court. Negga said that “things are often polished out of history” and explained that she was pleased to have had the opportunity to present the story with all its complexities, woes and triumphs.
Describing her Oscar nomination as “emotional”, Negga modestly insisted that “there’s really a huge amount of luck in this business”. While the actress dogmatically credited her success with simply being in the right place at the right time, she did stress the importance of having a firm hold over one’s own identity. “Don’t let people diminish you, because they will try”, she advised any aspiring actors, alluding to the infamous dog-eat-dog culture of Hollywood. Negga explained that in order to establish your territory as an actor, you need to be good at not only acting in theatrical roles but also at acting in a confident manner more off the stage. “Fake it ‘til you make it, essentially”, Negga comically concluded.
