It’s the little things that often make a performance. The sweeteners, if you will, that bring out the sweetness.
For her Oscar-nominated work in “Hotel Rwanda,” Sophie Okonedo received a key piece of character-building advice from Tatiana Rusesabagina, the wife of real-life Rwandan hotel manager–and refugee shelterer–Paul Rusesabagina. Since Okonedo would be playing Tatiana, it made sense for her to listen.
The two women met in Brussels, where the Rusesabaginas have lived since they fled Africa after the Rwandan genocide in 1994–the year in which Terry George’s film is set. The two women didn’t have a language in common, “but somehow we muddled through.”
It was during an early conversation that Okonedo picked up a character essential.
“She offered me tea and asked me if I would like sugar in it,” recalls Okonedo of the early meeting. “I said, ‘I don’t like sugar in my tea.’ She said, ‘To play Tatiana, you have to have sugar in your tea.’ “
Admittedly, there’s not a lot of time for domesticity of any kind in George’s acclaimed film. Tatiana and Paul (Don Cheadle) are too busy shoring up provisions, hiding from soldiers, searching for missing relatives and doing everything possible to either save their own lives–and the lives of their children–or provide a quick and painless suicide if survival proves impossible.
The Rusesabaginas cheat death on several occasions over the course of the film. That’s dramatic license, Okonedo said. In reality, she says, their peril was probably even greater.
“I didn’t really ask Tatiana about the genocide at all,” Okonedo said. “I wasn’t trying to imitate the real-life Tatiana. Really I was just trying to, I suppose, explore her within the story I had, the facts I had.”
Sugar or no sugar, Okonedo’s work was enough to impress the academy voters to nominate the 35-year-old, London-born performer (who received SAG and Image award nominations as well) for best supporting actress.
She also got a thumbs-up from the woman whose life she portrayed.
More Top Picks Best Bedside Gun Safes
“Tatiana watched the film with me,” Okonedo said. “It was so emotional, and at the end she hugged me and held me and said, ‘You are a beautiful Tatiana.’ “
Okonedo, who lives in London, said she had fleeting knowledge of the Rwandan genocide–she was 25 at the time–before she got the role.
“I remember seeing the mass exodus of the Tutsi and knowing there was a genocide,” Okonedo said. “But I really didn’t have much of an understanding of what was going on until I started reading the script. That’s the way I tend to do things. I do a lot of research and digging around before I start filming. Then, once I start, I tend to stop and play the moment.”
The producers of “Hotel Rwanda” singled out Okonedo after seeing her work in Stephen Frears’ “Dirty Pretty Things.” How they made the creative leap from a London prostitute in the midst of a black-market vital-organs scam to earnest Rwandan refugee mom is anybody’s guess, but Okonedo is glad they did.
“I meant to ask [producer] Alex Ho that question,” Okonedo said. “I don’t think he was seeing ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ specifically for me. I think he just wanted someone who could act.”
The “Rwanda” role may prove to be a career turning point. “I’ll be happy if the nomination makes a difference to my career,” Okonedo said. “I’m not quite sure yet [whether it has].” Her next film will be the secret-agent thriller “Aeon Flux” with Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand.