Rebecca Hall has detailed the agonising legacy her biracial mother Maria Ewing and grandfather 'passing' themselves off as white had on her family in a candid new interview.
The 39-year-old actress' family's own complex biracial history inspired her directorial debut, Passing, about two light-skinned Black women who 'pass' as white.
Hall is the daughter of white British director Sir Peter Hall and Detroit-born opera singer Maria, 71, whose mother was white Dutch and father was of African American, and possibly Sioux Native American and white European descent.
Like the characters in Passing, Hall's maternal grandfather Norman Isaac Ewing, who died in 1968, spent his life 'passing' as a white man and raised his children, including Maria, as white.
History: Rebecca Hall has detailed the agonising legacy her biracial mother Maria Ewing and grandfather 'passing' themselves off as white had on her family in a candid new interview (pictured with her mother in 2010)
Speaking to the Guardian, the star said growing up in a family who had a history of 'passing' led to 'inheriting shame, not pride.'
She said: 'I think in any family that has a legacy of passing, it’s very tricky, because, sadly, you inherit all of the shame and none of the pride.'
Rebecca added that she felt further shame as she grew up within the upper class echelons due to her parents' success in the entertainment field.
She said: 'I was in these fancy private English boarding schools and everyone gets picked up in Range Rovers, y’know? I’m going to and fro in a taxi and everyone looks at my mother and it’s like, "Isn’t she exotic!’”
Directorial debut: The 39-year-old actress' family's own complex biracial history inspired her directorial debut, Passing, about two light-skinned Black women who 'pass' as white ( pictured Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in Passing)
'The most articulate way I can describe it is that if you’re in a Black family and a member leaves and crosses the colour line, you don’t ever see them as white, even if all the white people see it. And that’s the perspective that I wanted the audience to see it from.'
The theme was explored in Nella Larsen's 1929 novella, Passing, on which Hall's film is based.
It centres on the friendship of Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga), two light-skin Black women who both 'pass' - intentionally and unintentionally - as white in 1920s New York.
