Aml Ameen is on a roll. The British actor’s holiday rom-com Boxing Day is finally available on Prime Video after weeks of anticipation. Ameen wrote, directed, and also produced the film, which subscribers of the streaming platform are excited to premiere. The film also stars Aja Naomi King and Leigh-Anne Pinnock and is inspired by Ameen’s life living in London. Boxing Day is described as a celebration of Black British culture that explores universal themes of love, family, and friendship. On top of that, the film features an all-black cast, making it the first Black British rom-com in U.K. history.
Ameen has a lot in the works. He will also be starring as Martin Luther King Jr. in the upcoming Netflix feature Rustin opposite Chris Rock and Coleman Domingo. The film takes a different approach to retelling events of the Civil Rights Movement, as it follows the story of Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington. The film is currently in production, with President Brack Obama and Michelle Obama as producers on the film.
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Ameen’s rise has been steady. His other credits include the critically acclaimed series I May Destroy You and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. He was also recognized as one of the Screen International’s 2005 Stars of Tomorrow, and nominated for Screen Nation’s 2006 Best Newcomer award. Now, he’s getting his time to shine. Pop Culture spoke with Ameen about Boxing Day, important upcoming projects, being a content curator, and being selective in the work he does.
PC: Fans are super excited about Boxing Day and the reactions from the screeners so far have been great. It’s an inspirational account of your life living in London. What themes from your life did you incorporate in this film?
AA: It’s funny. I watched it the other day at the premiere, and I was like, “Wow Aml, you’ve really left your life a little bit exposed, man.” I was like it’s definitely hilarious to see. I think that the main essence is, yes, I’ve lived in L.A. for a decade. I’ve introduced girlfriends of the past to my British Caribbean family and then some of it gets kind of a bit cross-pollinated. I kind of draw from inspiration from different moments in my family. Like, my parents got divorced when I was 15, not when I was 28. So I just this kind of reconstructed everything a little bit to suit the film and to suit the dramatic purposes. But a lot of the characters like Bilal in this film or Bubsy are based on my real…sister, my real father.
It’s also considered to be the first Black British rom-com. How important was it for you to have an all-Black cast in the film?
It is the first Black British rom-com. I’m a part of that kind of generation of people that are doing work that is the firsts, because history has kind of made it so. But it was more important to have a cast that was reflective of my story. So I’m telling this – a personal story and so I happen to be a Black British Caribbean of African descent man. So, I’m telling what I know and in telling what I know, the cast will end up being Black and British for the most part, because it’s a story that’s kind of inspired by life. So that was really important to me. Just to tell a story from the gut and that was real. And after that, the rest has become history.
You’ve starred in some very amazing projects, all of which are meaningful in their own way. You worked in I May Destroy You alongside Michaela Coel. We know you from Lee Daniels’s The Butler. You’ve had a role in Beyond the Lights. I’m always interested in actors who have roles of meaning. It really seems like you are selective with your roles and choose those that have depth. So what goes into choosing the role for you? Roles can be few, far in between. But it seems like you’re still very specific on what it is that you’re choosing to portray.
I am specific, and I’ve become more specific with age. I was told very early on in the business that your foot, your yes’s and your no’s are the most important you can do as an actor. It’s kind of the only control you have as an actor – what you say yes and what you say no to. So throughout my career, I’ve wanted to tell the spectrum of the human experience, whether it be a film that I did when I was a kid called Kidulthood, which is a cult classic in the U.K., or Yardie with Idris Elba. Just deciding on telling stories that are meaningful to me and stories that are culturally relevant and powerful.
Right now, I’m playing Martin Luther King in Rustin. It’s George C. Wolfe and Netflix production, and the Obamas’ new film. It’s a great honor to try and inhabit a person that has such gravitas and has a perspective on life, and has moved the world in a way that is the reality that we’re living in now. So I try and choose that for sure.
And even within Boxing Day, which is a holiday rom-com, if you’re watching it and you’re listening to it, you may be able to tell that there are deeper things going on. So the scene with the mother and her boyfriend are talking about how challenging it is for her being from her era and her time to be in an interracial relationship. The scene with Melvin, my character, and his dad, talking about father-son disappointment. So I always try and layer the things I do with depth. It’s really important to me.
My next show that’s coming out on BET+, it’s called The Porter and it’s about the porters in the 1920s getting their rights to actually work in the porter system. And I play a guy called Junior who goes against the grain and becomes a gangster. But he’s becoming – well you call him a gangster or you can call him a revolutionary of his era.
So I like things that have depth because that’s kind of my setting as an individual. But, I also like fun and humor and things that feel kind of entertaining. I’m always cognizant and conscious of an audience and what they’re into as well.
We talked about roles that have depth and things that kind of stand the test of time. You mentioned that you’re playing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a Netflix film Rustin. This is a story that hasn’t been told from this lens before from a traditional recollection of a Civil Rights Movement. The movie tells the story of Byard Rustin, a gay Black civil rights activist who’s responsible for organizing the March on Washington. It’s an interesting way to tell the story and to be honest, this is not a story that’s been told. How pivotal is it for you to play an iconic figure like Martin Luther King? And then what are you hoping that viewers take away from this specific story?
The truth is what I’m hoping they take away from the story. Bayard Rustin was a revolutionary Black man that helped organize an event that stopped the world. And he was buried in history because of his sexuality. In no way is that right. No falsehoods in life are right. So I really loved the opportunity to play Martin Luther King in that story and explore the friendship of Rustin and Martin Luther King and another side to that story that actually Martin is that beacon and that light, that shining light that we look to. What he was galvanized by the universe around him and that’s all the people that helped make that moment happen.
So to me, it’s the greatest honor of my acting career and perhaps life that I could do my best to portray Martin at that moment in his life. It’s a great honor. I did the “I Have a Dream” speech about a month ago and it changed me as a person. Just saying the words, but doing my best to understand the journey of the man. It changed me as a person. I’ll give you an example. So, we’ve all heard that saying, “Judge not by the color of his skin, but the content of your character.” And I’ve heard it and I’ve understood it and it’s become a lofty idea. But what’s true about it is that Martin’s talking about a spiritual revolution, which is delay judgment of a person in life, period. And in practicing that, I had such a euphoric experience.
We all judge people day to day, whether they be Black, White, skinny, tall… we judge and judgment actually sometimes is part of our survival. But he is asking to delay judgment and there’s something that happens with that space between thought and experience. And I’ve had quite a life-changing experience doing my best to get to know Dr. King in those moments of his life.
You also touched on this briefly that you have the legendary, amazing Obamas behind the project as producers. How significant is this to have their support on a project like this?
I mean, it’s amazing. You’re talking about being up there with the most iconic figures in the history of modern man. I mean, there’s nothing I can really say to that but thank you. It’s mad.
What was it like working alongside fellow creative Michaela Coel on I May Destroy You? Do you foresee yourself collaborating with her again in the future?
Yeah, I’d love to collaborate with Michaela. She’s got a lot of specificity about her and a lot of genius. I get along with her really well. We had a lot of banter and fun on the show, and as we can see, it’s really impacted the world. Her show and was kind of the precursor to all the different things that happened in Boxing Day where you have a film that’s a rom-com about Black British people in their everyday lives. And obviously, her show took on a more serious subject matter. But one of the things I love about it also is that it’s about Black British people in their everyday lives, which we just have never really seen internationally before.
What’s a dream role of yours that you’d like to play? You talked about how playing MLK is probably the most important role that you’re going to be playing in your career thus far, probably overall in your career. But what other roles would you like to get into?
As a writer/director, there’s so many things that I want to do and one of the things I’m working on is this big musical set around the world. And that’s one of the dream projects I have in my mind right now that I’m working toward with my company, Studio 113. And then as an actor, I kind of would love to go and have some fun in some of those big action-adventure stories that have the world watching. I’m kind of into that right now. Just those classic films that stand the test of time are what I’m interested in and having a bit of a laugh along the way. So I think something like that is what I’m going to draw into my life.
And I want to talk about that a little bit, because you just mentioned films that stand the test of time and one of the things we know about holiday films is that they stand the test of time. Obviously, Boxing Day is a holiday rom-com. Why did you choose to incorporate Christmas and the holidays within this film?
I wanted a film that people can watch every year as their film. And for the British audience, whether they’re Black or whatever race or culture, there’s something about these films that you return to. They’ve become like an old friend that you see every year. So to me, I wanted that film. I love watching certain films every year. I watch The Goonies or I watch My Best Friend’s Wedding. I might watch the original West Side Story. I might watch Love Actually. I’ll watch This Christmas with Chris Brown and Idris.
So to me, I wanted something that felt specific to Black British culture that can be recycled every year like an old friend. You’re like, “Oh, let’s put on that movie. Let’s put on Boxing Day.” And you laugh at this bit while you’re cooking your jerk chickens and having your Guinness punch, and then you go to your mom or dad and ask, “When’s the rest of the food coming?” “Don’t take that.” And then you’re looking at Boxing Day again, “Oh, I love this bit.” That’s what I was attempting to create and by all accounts, or by the account of many I should say more accurately, they love it. And that’s how they feel about the movie, so I’m very, very happy. Very happy. The film is what I hoped for.
