Meet Cush Jumbo: Smart Girl on Screen
“I want to be the first female James Bond. I like jumping off of things, kicking butt, and rolling through fire,” actress Cush Jumbo unabashedly answered when I asked her about whether she has any dream roles. She’s an undoubtedly strong, British woman, so I’d have to agree that this is a reasonable request. Cush is no stranger to taking on roles traditionally cast as men. Born and raised in south London, one of her first trips to the United States for work was to play the role of Mark Antony in an all female Julius Caesar production.
Cush is currently starring as Lucca Quinn on The Good Wife and was cast from her performance of her one-woman show, Josephine and I. Her eyes light up as she regales me with the details of her first published play, which is partly autobiographical and partly a portrait of Josephine Baker. She gushes over her obsession of Baker, a glamorous, talented black woman who starred in films and shows without being typecast as a nurse or a nanny in a time period when that was not the norm. It was both fascinating and comforting to Cush, to identify with a woman who looked like her and achieved wild success.
During one particular performance of her show, there were two people in the audience paying very close attention. “I was already a fan of The Good Wife, so when I was told that Robert and Michelle King wanted to come up and say hi after a performance, I knew exactly who they were and started to freak out. I asked them a million questions and I had no idea the show shot in Brooklyn. Then a week later I got a phone call offering me a job here, so I figured I had to have said something right!”
This job offer was made even sweeter by the fact that the impetus for Cush to write Josephine and I was her frustration with the entertainment industry and that she was unhappy at the lack of creative output she was allowed to have on various other projects. She initially wrote it to be a sendoff before she went off to teach or do something entirely different. Then the show, in Cush’s words, “went mad” and was a huge success in London, and then the US.
When Cush was putting on her show in London, Meryl Streep attended a performance and visited Cush backstage. I tried to ask more about this, but Cush insists that once Meryl put her arm around her and congratulated her, everything gets fuzzy. I accept this and asked the next obvious question: who else does she hold as idols? “People who respect you from the bottom to the top. Generous and giving when they work with you, Hugh Jackman for one and Julianna Margulies for another.” She went on to explain how satisfying it is as an actor to meet and work with someone who you’ve previously admired and have all your expectations of them surpassed in the best way possible.
What kind of advice does this successful, inspiring, and creative Smart Girl have for other Smart Girls looking to create their own pieces? “Write what you know,” she replied. “Write from your heart, and what makes you feel good. Not what’s popular or what you think other people would like.”
Cush Jumbo’s confidence in her ability is inspiring, and as someone who focuses on being present in the moment and giving appreciation where it’s due, she is a woman full of energy, ideas, intelligence, and drive who will hopefully one day be the first female James Bond.
Image via by Cush Jumbo
