'Don't shine a spotlight on me', says Ruth: The Loving actress who likes to hide in plain sight

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Ruth Negga likes to hide in plain sight. ‘There are amazing actors who have charisma — you don’t want to see them disappear,’ she said

Ruth Negga likes to hide in plain sight. ‘There are amazing actors who have charisma — you don’t want to see them disappear,’ she said.

‘Like Julia Roberts! She has extraordinary magnetism. I don’t have that, so I’m interested in the disappearing act.’

We were chatting as we sat on a private roof terrace in West Hollywood that also happened to be a sanctuary for hummingbirds (which seemed appropriate, given that Negga herself is like a tiny little bird).

And I notice that she’s doing it now. Disappearing. Black leather jacket, black slacks, dark hair tucked under a black cap.

The only flash of colour comes from an emerald ring — on loan to her with other gems from ethical jeweller Gemfields while she travels coast to coast in the U.S. (and across Europe) promoting her film, Loving, which goes on release in the UK on February 3.

Loving is the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were instrumental in overturning repugnant old slavery laws about interracial marriage.

Richard was white. Mildred was black. And in Virginia in 1958 such a liaison was deemed to be illegal.

The couple had to marry across the state line, in Washington DC, and were denied the right to live as a married couple in their home state.

Over a period of nine years, during which time the Lovings had three children, lawyers took on their case, taking it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the slavery laws were overturned.

The picture was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and the portraits of the Lovings by Negga and Joel Edgerton were rightly acclaimed.

Jeff Nichols’s movie is one of the best depictions of ordinary folks fighting injustice that I have ever seen, and the performances are quietly captivating yet stirring.

Negga, who was born in Ethiopia but raised by her Irish mother in Limerick and then South London, is magnificent as Mildred. I’ve seen the film five times in an effort to discover how she does it, and I still can’t work it out. She simply inhabits the character.

The actress said she studied a documentary featuring footage of the Lovings and it was important to her that she got the Southern accent correct. She nails it — and as a result — disappears into Mildred.

‘I didn’t want it to be mimicry, obviously,’ she told me.

‘They [the Lovings] were a couple of few words. They were reserved and polite in their countenance,’ she added, as she sipped camomile tea and we shared a mezze plate of spicy dips and warm breads.

Negga and Edgerton capture the Lovings so well you can tell what they are thinking, and feeling, just by observing them. Both actors were nominated for Golden Globes last weekend, but I’m disappointed that they weren’t recognised in the Bafta line-up.

Negga is in the running for a Rising Star Bafta, though; something she’s pleased about.

‘When you’re a kid, you rehearse your Oscar speech in the bath. But you don’t think you’re going to get near an Oscar — or anything else — when you’re seven!’

She studied acting for three years at Trinity College, Dublin, and carved out a career for herself, working at the National Theatre during Nicholas Hytner’s tenure and taking various film and television roles, including hitwoman Tulip O’Hare in U.S. TV series Preacher, opposite Dominic Cooper, to whom she became close.

‘I didn’t do acting to be famous or become a celebrity. Acting is the art of human observation. People fascinate me,’ she said — and I get the sense she would much rather watch others than be watched herself. Negga laughed and described herself as ‘the shyest exhibitionist’.

After Loving was screened in Cannes last May, she thought she would go to the Toronto International Film Festival in September, where it was also shown; and perhaps attend one or two screenings in January.

But in between filming Preacher, she’s been on the road almost constantly. ‘It’s been nearly eight months!’ The promotional work does have its upside, however. Famed Hollywood stylist Karla Welch has helped transform Ruth.

‘I was so green on everything,’ she said. ‘Terrified! Rabbit in the headlights.

‘But I get up in the morning — and wash myself, if I’m lucky. And then people come into my room; and put my face and hair together. Put clothes on me. And I’m out the door!

‘They do all the glam. I’m not fashion-forward, but I have got to wear some of the most beautiful things!

‘All of which I’ve returned, by the way.’

Lily Collins does not stand on ceremony

Lily gives me some VERY sharp advice 

Lily Collins does not stand on ceremony. We had inadequate silverware with which to divide and conquer the roasted vegetable starter at the annual W Magazine ‘It Girl’ luncheon at a swanky restaurant in West Hollywood.

‘Let’s just get the knife in there and cut it up!’ Collins said, with relish, and proceeded to serve us both.

‘This is why Lily’s one of my It Girls,’ commented Lynn Hirschberg, the celebrated W writer who had gathered the ‘girls’ together.

But Collins isn’t just good at overcoming obstacles at the dinner table. She has also written a series of poems, essays and letters under the collective title Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, which Penguin will be publishing worldwide on March 7. ‘It’s for young people, dealing with issues,’ she told me. ‘I discuss coping with partners, family, people and self.

‘There are a lot of things I thought I’d finished dealing with, regarding relationships, and my looks.’

So does she have any more advice?

‘Well, you don’t need to be so polite at the table,’ she said, pointedly.

‘If you need a knife to cut it — and there’s only a spoon — get a knife.’

WATCH OUT FOR... 

Tony Shalhoub, who starred in the musical The Band’s Visit, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book written by Itamar Moses.

The show was adapted from Eran Kolirin’s film, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. I remember it well.

Like the movie, the musical — which I caught in the last days of its extended run at the Atlantic Theatre Company, downtown in Chelsea — is about an Egyptian police force band, in their powder-blue braided uniforms, who are visiting Israel to perform at the opening of an Arab cultural centre.

But at the airport, they get on the wrong bus, which takes them to the wrong town. The band’s leader, played by Shalhoub, is mortified. He seeks help from the owner of a bar in the desert deadend in which they have been deposited.

Tony Shalhoub (left), who starred in the musical The Band’s Visit, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book written by Itamar Moses, is one to watch

It’s such a poignant and beautifully observed piece. Yazbek’s score is just right, in the way that it evokes a sense of time and place.

Sarah Jessica Parker was sitting in front of me in the theatre, and the second the last note had been played, she was on her feet, applauding. We all followed suit pretty damn fast.

The Band’s Visit resonated on so many levels: not just as a plea for peace and understanding in the Middle East, but for rifts to be healed in the painfully divisive country called the United States of America, too. 

I hope the show can transfer to Broadway, so that a larger audience can also be transported — and transformed.

Pom Klementieff, who will play Mantis: the new Guardian of the Galaxy, is another to keep an eye on

Pom Klementieff, who will play Mantis: the new Guardian of the Galaxy. Klementieff (pictured below) told me she had trained solidly for weeks, only to find, when she reported to the set for Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 (due to open in the UK on April 28), that her martial arts and fighting skills weren’t required. 

She may see more action, though, when she repeats her super-hero role in the next Avengers film, which will shoot in Atlanta later this year. I met Klementieff in Los Angeles, where she was attending the W Magazine ‘It Girl’ luncheon. 

But she told me she was heading to New York, hoping to see the big hit musical Dear Evan Hansen, by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (they wrote the lyrics for La La Land) with a book by Steven Levenson. 

The show features a performance by Ben Platt that is arguably the best on Broadway right now.