Thandiwe Newton has issued a tearful apology to "darker-skinned actresses" in an emotional interview.
While promoting her upcoming movie God's Country in an interview with the Associated Press, the 49-year-old started to become visibly emotional while discussing her role.
The movie is based on the short story by James Lee Burke, in which, the lead role is a white man.
During the interview, Newton explained how she originally struggled to accept the part, explaining: "I now realize that my internalized prejudice was stopping me from feeling like I could play this role, when it's precisely that prejudice that I've received."
Watch the emotional moment below:She continued: "It doesn't matter that it's from African American women more than anyone else. It doesn't matter. I received prejudice. Anyone who's received oppression and prejudice feels this character."
With tears in her eyes, Newton then says: "I've wanted so desperately to apologize every day to darker-skinned actresses.
"To say, 'I'm sorry that I'm the one chosen. My mama looks like you,'".
Newton then placed her head in her hand, before adding: "It's been very painful to have women that look like my mom feel like I'm not representing them. That I'm taking from them. Taking their men, taking their work, taking their truth.
"I didn't mean to, you know?"
Newton's mom is Nyasha Newton, a Shona tribe princess from Zimbabwe, per People.
The Star Wars star then said that "any woman of color" who has managed to help other actors get into the movie business matters.
This is not the first time Newton has spoken out about her mixed-race heritage and her struggles with prejudice.
In a 2020 interview with Vulture, she revealed that she seldom shared photos of her father to her Instagram page because she wanted "Black people to feel they can trust her".
"All these Black people in the public eye who are Black, and you don't think about their white parents. Like on my Instagram, it's always my mom," she said.
"I don't put my dad up much, and that's because I want Black people to feel they can trust me and feel safe with me — that I'm not a representative of this Establishment that degrades people of color," she added. "All my f***ing career, I felt like, to Black people, I'm not a legitimate Black person."
