Dona Croll is an acting stalwart. With appearances on TV, stage and screen, she has sustained a successful career and doesn’t shy away from politics. Born in Jamaica to a lay preacher father and reverend mother, Croll came to England at five years old. Her love of acting was encouraged at grammar school and she hasn’t looked back. From comedy (Gimme Gimme), theatre (All My Sons, Twelfth Night) to soaps (Family Affairs), drama (Ice Cream Girls) and film (Maderlay, Eastern Promises), Croll’s versatility is self evident.
In her latest production Mouthful, six short plays on the global food crisis, she plays four parts. The multi-linguist (she speaks French, Italian and German) tells Joy Francis why she thinks black and white actresses are treated differently, how her mother shaped her racial politics, being starstruck by Lauren Bacall and Danny Glover and why Lenny Henry and Steve McQueen are making the right waves on diversity in the industry.
You are starring in Mouthful, a play based on a partnership between six writers and six leading scientists on the global food crisis. What made you say yes to the play and what is your role?
I’m appearing in four of the six pieces, so I’m playing four different characters in different parts of the world. What attracted me to the plays is the challenge of playing a different character in quick succession. When I say to people I’m doing a play about the global food crisis, their eyes glaze over. The challenge is to make the play alive, interesting and entertaining. There isn’t much political theatre anymore, like in the 1970s. We are apolitical and think we live in a post racial word, yet we are facing more dangers than we did from pharmaceutical companies and those who want to control the food, like Monsanto.
How has your position on the topic changed, or been informed, as a result of being part of Mouthful?
The play didn’t teach me anything I didn’t know, as I’m pretty clued up on world politics. It hasn’t raised my awareness but it has improved my knowledge of how these global corporations do what they do, and the effects it has on people and on the planet. Even the very rich are getting worried about it. It leads to instability.
Why did you choose acting?
My teacher and head teacher while at school both advised me to become an actor. Usually it’s the other way around, with teachers saying, don’t be silly; do your A Levels. I’m a Brummie. I went to grammar school. I didn’t even know what an actor was in the seventies and I didn’t see black people on TV. When I left school I thought, I’ll give it a go. If it didn’t work out I would do languages – I speak French, German and Italian. I don’t like routine. I have the routine of doing a play for a few weeks, saying the same lines every night, but I’m always trying to improve my performance, and I am acting to different audiences. I could not be in the office with the same people day after day. I would have ended up in jail.
Your career has been so diverse, with TV classics such as Casualty and Doctor Who, comedy (Gimme Gimme), films such as Manderlay and theatre, such as Elmina’s Kitchen and the Last Days of Judas Iscariot. What motivates you?
As an actor, you get offered work and you take it. That is what happens. I have long given up thinking there is any career structure. I just take the next job which looks interesting and pays me enough money to live. There was a time when I thought I’d get this and that role and I’d move on to the West End and that there would be TV and movie stardom. That is not how it works. You go from job to job. The way you look is so important as well. If you are a white man, and a good actor, you can expect a career structure where you do only this kind of work and stay there. As a woman, it’s more difficult as there are fewer parts and fewer writers. If you are a black woman, then it’s even more difficult as you are just not seen in the same way as a white woman. I explained it to a director I worked with last year. I said, when I work with black companies I can play any part. With white companies I usually play the maid. I played Cleopatra with Talawa Theatre. If it’s the National Theatre or The Globe, they are not seeing me or any black actress in that type of part. Usually the white actresses have done more and are hotter, in that they are better known as they have been on TV.
Did having preacher parents and growing up in Jamaica up to the age of five shape your creative path?
My dad is a lay preacher and my mum is a reverend. I got fed up of the church. When I was 14, I realised that every story I wrote was about someone redeeming themselves, and I thought I was being too influenced by it. I never did any of that getting saved business, much to my parents’ chagrin. My parents’ faith didn’t have that much of an effect on me, other than teaching me to be a good girl. My mother’s attitude to England is what influenced me. My mother is one of those white Jamaicans who was used to privilege and people kowtowing to her. Coming to England, suddenly she was treated like a black person. She wasn’t having her children treated like that. She could spot racism immediately. It was just instilled into me I couldn’t behave like the white working class as I wouldn’t get anywhere. They could leave school and get work and promotion. She said you cannot. You have to get a good, sound education. My mother’s confidence, aspirations and support were strong. There was an opportunity to play violin at school so my mother got me a violin. She never said – this isn’t for you. She understood what my position in this country would be if I didn’t do the right thing.
You performed a monologue at the Act for Change’s first anniversary event at the National Theatre earlier this year. You have been a visible face in the industry for decades and must have seen many diversity initiatives come and go. How is Act for Change different?
In the 1970s there were schemes. In the 1980s there was the Campaign for Equal Opportunity in the Arts. Every 10 years there is something to level the playing field. Norman Beaton was very supportive, but there weren’t any big black actors who could put their head above the parapet in the way that Lenny Henry and directors like Steve McQueen have done. McQueen is an Oscar winner. We didn’t have that before. Also we had the unions. Records [on black employment in the industry] were kept. The view was, we’ve done that now and the figures were abandoned. There was a sense over the past 15 years that there were fewer black people being employed in the industry – in front of and behind the camera but we couldn’t confirm because we weren’t keeping the figures anymore. Then we had Lenny who got the figures and proved we were right. He has been quite radical about ring fencing the money for black talent. There is no argument against it as it has already been done with the BBC’s move to Salford. In every other area of the arts, black people excel, but when it comes to film and TV in particular, there is something about the power of that medium where we are just not allowed to put our perspective forward.
Any advice for budding actors of colour?
Find a way to get some training. Recently we had a big thing at Bafta for Larrington Walker. In the 1980s he set up a little drama school which Sharon D Clarke came from. He set it up as he worked in the industry. He got actors like Bob Hoskins and Georgina Hale to come to Brixton and talk to the kids. Femi Oguns has the Identity Drama School. Try to get into drama school but at least get some training. Acting isn’t as easy as it looks. You can’t stand on stage with no training unless you are insanely gifted. The first time I worked with Danny Glover and Lauren Bacall I was thinking, how did this happen? How did a girl from Birmingham get here? Get some training and give it a go.
Mouthful is at Trafalgar Studies until Saturday 3 October 2015.