Talk Of The Town

Plucked from obscurity by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins to play the lead in If Beale Street Could Talk, KiKi Layne is set to become Hollywood’s next big thing. Here, she chats to Sophie Goddard about pep talks with Lupita Nyong’o, new projects and the phone call that changed her life

- Sophie Goddard

‘It was my dream to work with Barry...’ says KiKi Layne, trailing offmid-anecdote when our call is interrupted. ‘Yes, Barry’s great, he’s wonderful!’ adds an unexpected male voice on the line. It turns out to be the Academy Award-winning film-maker and director Barry Jenkins himself, who wrote the screenplay for If Beale Street Could Talk and the triple-Oscar-winning Moonlight in the same summer. ‘Sorry, Barry does that!’ laughs Layne, after retrieving the phone and picking up where she left off. ‘We’d be on set dealing with painful, deep concepts, so to have a kind of lightness on top of everything was a blessing.’

Rewind a few months before the 26-year-old landed the role of Tish in Beale Street, and Layne was just another would-be actress. Having graduated with a BFA in acting from Chicago’s DePaul University, she found herself living at home with her parents in Cincinnati, Ohio, struggling to break into the film industry because her prior experience was limited to theatre (she had appeared in productions of Byhalia, Mississippi, Good People and Octagon). Her decision to up sticks and move to LA was a risky one. ‘Even though logically it made the least amount of sense, my gut was telling me to go there,’ she recalls. ‘Something in my spirit was saying, “Go, go!” I found out on the Saturday about an ABC talent showcase that was taking place on the Tuesday, so I packed up and moved on the Monday. I could see some people were thinking, “Oh God, is she really doing this?” But everyone was supportive, especially my mom. She was so excited.’ It was a leap of faith that would pay off. Three months later, Layne auditioned for Beale Street and the rest is history in the making. ‘Sometimes the best thing is the thing that scares you the most,’ she adds.