Queen Cleopatra director denounces criticism of Casting Black Cleopatra Variety

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“It’s more likely that Cleopatra looked like our actor than Elizabeth Taylor ever did.”

Last summer I was living in Venice Beach and had decided, due to a friend’s persistence, to visit a fortune teller. Me, still skeptical but ready to laugh, I agreed to go. What the fortune teller said made me roll my eyes: I’m not saying you’re Cleopatra, but somehow you share her story and are connected.

Less than a month later, I got a call from a production company making Jada Pinkett Smiths African Queens and was subsequently hired to direct four episodes of a documentary-drama about the life of the controversial leader. The joke was about me.

I remember as a child seeing Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra. I was captivated, but even then I felt the picture wasn’t good. Was her skin really that white? With this new production, could I find the answers to Cleopatra’s legacy and free her from the hold Hollywood had placed on her image?

Born in Iran, I am Persian, and the heritage of Cleopatra has been attributed at one time or another to the Greeks, Macedonians and Persians. The known facts are that his Macedonian Greek family, the Ptolemaic line, intermarried with the Seleucid dynasty of West Africa and had been in Egypt for 300 years. Cleopatra was eight generations away from those Ptolemaic ancestors, making the possibility that she was white somewhat unlikely. After 300 years, we can safely say that Cleopatra was Egyptian. She was no more Greek or Macedonian than Rita Wilson or Jennifer Aniston. Both are a generation from Greece.

As I researched, I realized what a political act it would be to see Cleopatra portrayed by a black actress. To me, the idea that people had been so incredibly wrong before, from Theda Bara to Monica Bellucci, and recently, with Angelina Jolie and Gal Gadot vying to play her, meant we had to do even better. The hunt was on to find the right performer to bring Cleopatra into the 21st century.

Director Tina Gharavi

Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melancholy sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white? Its closeness to whiteness seems to give it value, and for some Egyptians, that seems really important.

After much expectation and countless auditions, we found in Adele James an actor who could convey not only the beauty of Cleopatra, but also her strength. What historians can confirm is that it’s more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele than Elizabeth Taylor ever did.

As production got closer, I realized the scale and political nature of this work. It was important to get it right, but also to find a way to tell the story with humanism and nuance: the last thing we needed was another Cleopatra divorced from her femininity and her only sexualized power. The HBO series Rome portrays one of the smartest, most sophisticated and powerful women in the world as a sleazy and dissipated drug addict, but Egypt doesn’t seem to care. Where was the outrage then? But to portray her as black? GOOD.

Maybe it’s not just that I made a series that portrayed Cleopatra as black, but that I asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they’re mad at me for it. I agree with that.

During filming, I became the target of a huge online hate campaign. The Egyptians accused me of laundering and stealing their history. Some threatened to ruin my career, what I wanted to tell them was laughable. I spoiled it very well for me, thank you very much! No amount of reasoning or reminders that the Arab invasions had yet to take place in Cleopatra’s time seemed to stem the tide of ridiculous comments. Amir, in his room in Cairo, wrote to tell me urgently that Cleopatra was Greek! Oh Lawd! Why would that be a good thing for you, Amir? You are Egyptian.

So, was Cleopatra black? We don’t know for sure, but we can be sure she wasn’t white like Elizabeth Taylor. We need to have a conversation with ourselves about our colorism and the internalized white supremacy that Hollywood has indoctrinated us with.

Above all, we must realize that the story of Cleopatra is less about her than about who we are.

It’s almost as if we don’t realize that misogynoir still has an effect on us today. We need to unleash our imagination and boldly create a world in which we can explore our historical figures without fearing the complexity that comes with portraying them. I’m proud to stand with Queen Cleopatra, a reimagined Cleopatra, and with the team that created this. We have reimagined a world over 2,000 years ago where once ruled an exceptional woman. I would like to draw a direct line between her and the women in Egypt who rose up during the Arab uprisings, and with my Persian sisters who are now rebelling against a brutal regime. Never before has it been so important to have female leaders: white or black.

Queen Cleopatra debuts on Netflix on May 10. Gharavi is a BAFTA and Sundance nominated filmmaker. Her debut feature, I Am Nasrine, was nominated for a BAFTA in 2013. Her next feature-length documentary, Tribalism is Killing Us, which stems from her visit to Angola State Prison, will be released later this year. Gharavi teaches filmmaking around the world and has received a scholarship from MIT. She was elected to the BAFTAs in 2017.

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