Breaking Baz: Why Kate Winslet Decided Fisayo Akinade Needed A Bigger Role In ‘Goodbye June’

EXCLUSIVE: Fisayo Akinade and Kate Winslet hit it off the moment they met. After a coffee and a chat, she there and then offered him a role in Goodbye June, her directing debut that streams on Netflix from today following a limited theatrical run.

A few days prior to their meeting, Heartstopper actor Akinade, acclaimed for his virtuosity on stage, was on the top deck of a London bus when his agent called with the news The Holiday, The Reader and Mildred Pierce star was directing a film and wanted to meet. “I said, ‘How the fuck does she know who I am?’”

His agent then asked if he’d like to know who he could be acting opposite. The names of Helen Mirren, Toni Collette, Timothy Spall, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough and Winslet herself were reeled off.

“‘What the fuck is going on?,’” he recalls spurting. 

The film, written by Joe Anders, the son of Winslet and Sam Mendes, is about a matriarch of the family dying at Christmastime. Winslet wanted Akinade to play Angel, the cancer ward nurse caring for Mirren’s June, the title character, while her husband, their four children and grandchildren wait by her bedside.   

The venue of the meeting was the Soho Hotel. As Akinade ran to the loo, Winslet came into view. “I thought, ‘Jesus. This is a woman I have watched since I was about 12 years old, and she’s just here in the flesh – so warm and lovely and funny and honest.’ We had coffee. She spoke about the film, spoke about herself, what she’d been up to, and then she said: ‘Well, listen, I want you to do it. There’s nobody else I’m seeing. I’m not asking anybody else.’”

It was agreed and an offer was made. Winslet then suggested he accompany her on auditioning some children for the pic, and even reading with them. They left the hotel together and Akinade recalls finding the situation “insane,” saying of Winslet, “She has an air about her that’s just very easy and breezy – I sort of liken it to how Denzel Washington and Pauletta Washington handle themselves. They’re both very famous people, but then they just get about in a way that means people aren’t flocking or hounding them.”

Akinade took notice. “I do think it’s something that you cultivate,” he says. “You either choose to cultivate anonymity or you choose to cultivate fanfare.”

Nigerian roots

Akinade was born in Liverpool, but when he was a baby he and his Nigerian parents went to Nigeria, returning to live in Manchester when he was an infant of four or five. By that time, the child could only speak Yoruba. “I knew loads of insults,” he says proudly.

His favourite phrase in Yoruba was to tell someone, “You’re the son of a goat and is your head all right?” 

Over breakfast at the Dean Street Restaurant in Soho, we chat about him playing nurse Angel, working with Winslet, with Judi Dench on The Vote and his analysis of the West End, and joke about what Nigerian traits we both might have. We’d been introduced a few weeks beforehand at a tea party for Winslet hosted by Netflix. 

I’m not sure that I want to reveal it exactly, but we laughed over how we both show our displeasure. I will say that it’s all very Nigerian!

For the longest time I’d been aware of Akinade’s work on stage ever since he appeared as The Boy in a touring production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. However, I really became aware of him when he appeared in the two dramas that Russell T Davies penned for Channel 4 in 2012, Banana and Cucumber. 

He kept popping up all over the place and then Josie Rourke cast him in James Graham’s immersive 2015 general election drama The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, where the theatrical all-star ensemble included Dame Judi, Mark Gatiss, Catherine Tate,Nina Sosanya, Timothy West, Rosalie Craig, Bill Paterson, Paul Chahidi, Jade Anouka, Jude Law, Finty Williams, Heather Craney, Hadley Fraser and Prasanna Puwanarajah.

I guess the point is: who wasn’t in it?!

Like Dame Judi, Akinade enjoys doing crossword puzzles. “She’s the nicest woman alive,” he says, eyes sparkling as he recalls their time working on The Vote.

The immersive production had a handful of performances leading up to a live broadcast on election night, which I was lucky enough to attend, on More4. It was timed to end on the dot at 10pm local time when polls closed.

“Inbuilt into the play were cues to let you know how far ahead or behind you were,” says Akinade. “There was a point where we were a little bit behind hitting ten o’clock, and someone came on and announced the time, which meant that we were behind. Judi out of nowhere started firing her lines out so quickly, and then everybody on stage started firing their lines too and we caught up in the play, ending bang on ten. We’d never hit that target before. It was amazing,” he marvels.

However, Akinade, in an astute analysis of the West End, feels that nowadays theater is “at a weird junction” because, he suggests, “There’s real pressure to make money and keep it robust. AI hurt and the writers and actors strikes in America hurt. You’ve got a lot of actors and and then there’s not enough money, so everyone who was doing prestige TV and film came down. The film stars started doing TV. The TV stars started doing plays, so it squeezed everybody down.”

Look at the West End, for example, he argues: “There is a celebrity in almost every show, and I get it because they need to pull [audiences], but what’s going to happen is people won’t go now unless there’s somebody recognizable in a lead role.

“Before you could put a play like Downstate [Bruce Norris’s controversial drama about child-sex offenders] on at the National Theatre, and people would be like, ‘It’s the greatest piece of fucking acting you will ever see from the greatest ensemble cast from [Steppenwolf] Chicago ever.’ It would sell out, whereas now, you’ve got to put your stars in, otherwise you’re screwed,” he says with concern in his voice.

To a point, because there are A-listers who are genuine creatures of the stage such as Billy Crudup and Denise Gough in High Noon at the Harold Pinter – and what about Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Paapa Essiedu in Ivo van Hove’s unbelievably powerful revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at Wyndham’s Theatre? They’re all legit. “And that’s the nuance,” says Akinade. “He [Crudup] happens to be very famous – and he’s a theater actor.”

Not long after appearing in The Vote, the Donmar offered Akinade a role in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan with Gemma Arterton, but the part in question wasn’t for him. “Very early and quite riskily, I said no thank you to the Donmar,” he explains. The theater soon came back and asked him to play the Dauphin and he took it because he believes it’s the best part in the play. “It was one of the best times,” he recalls. “I just got to be a petulant king and it was so fun.”

Turning down the initial part was “scary” because, “If you’re not working as an actor, you are not earning a thing,” he says. “You may have to do a few shifts in the pub, but now having been 14 years in [the business], the power of ‘no’ is so important. You really have to, for yourself, determine what you are going to do and what you will not do. What you say ‘no’ to is far more important than what you say ‘yes’ to.”

What will he not do? “All I want to do is play roles that have interesting arcs – a character is different at the end of the thing than they are at the beginning,” he says. “They’re changed somehow. I don’t care about being the lead or supporting character.”

For example, the Reverend Hale part,which the actor played in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible directed by Lyndsey Turner at the National Theatre, is for him the greatest arc in that play because the character is “somebody that is so devout and utterly convicted – and then he sees that this divine thing he has spent his life devoted to is corruptible. I just find that shift so potent,” he reasons.

It’s the same reason he played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet opposite Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley in director Simon Godwin’s production that was bound for the National Theatre until Covid happened and it was filmed for the National and Sky Arts.

National Theatre at home.

Background work

Akinade says that Winslet set up hands-on-experience meetings with two palliative care nurses on a cancer ward at a London hospital in preparation for his role. What was important for Akinade is that Muti Akinade, his mom, has been a carer for most of his life – first with the elderly and now with people with adult learning difficulties.

He felt the role allowed him to pay homage to his mother. “The way my mum cares is very Nigerian, so it is very tough love, monumental love. She had all these amazing techniques for getting in and soothing, so that’s one aspect that I wanted to bring to Angel.”

One of the nurses Winslet introduced him to was a 30-year veteran who still had the enthusiasm for care, compassion and empathy “despite the hours, despite the pay, despite how they’re sometimes treated, despite all of the things NHS nurses have to endure.”

The nurse alos provided the actor with one of the film’s best lines. “She said, ‘When a patient comes in for end of life care, my first thought is that we have to get it right. We have to make sure this person gets a good goodbye.’”

Akinade texted Winslet referencing the “good goodbye” adage and her immediate response was, “‘That’s going in the film.’ And then it did.” Sipping his coffee, he adds: “That was just so beautiful because that’s a real life quote from a real NHS nurse, and it was just very important to me to represent the NHS properly.”

As the film plays out, Angel observes the four siblings, especially the petty quarrels between the sisters played by Winslet and Riseborough. Wisely, he well understands that families bicker but knows the arguments should come later. “When your mum goes, are you going to be thinking about what happens to her ring, or are you just going to be missing your mum,” asks Akinade of his character’s motivations. “You can fight later. None of this is important.”

I realize that I had watched the film through Angel’s eyes. It’s his common sense that helps get the family in shape to see what’s happening to the matriarch. I’m a fervent believer in gaining wisdom from art.

Akinade agrees and says that Steven Spielberg’s film The Color Purple “was one of the most formative” he’s seen because “there’s a woman that is horrendously abused who not only finds her power, but also finds love in that.”

He watched the film with his mother at a time when he was being bullied at school. “And she knew that,” he recalls. “So she was like, ‘Come and watch this.’ She was essentially saying, ‘Look what happened to this woman. Look. And now look at her at the end. Look how happy she is. Look how free she’s about to be. You’ll be all right.’”

Sunday was their day to sit and watch films. It could be The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and The Clash of the Titans. One day when he was maybe 13, he watched Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. “It was probably too soon, but that was deeply, profoundly moving for me and I don’t think my mum or dad at the time understood why,” says Akinade. “For me, I was like, ‘Oh, look at this man defending this gay man… with such conviction.’”

It was very surreal moment, he says, when he appeared in Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play featuring Olivia Washington when he got to meet her parents, Pauletta Washington and Denzel Washington. “He was just ginormous in his energy, but so warm,” says Akinade. “He turned to me and exclaimed, ’Oh, you. You’re really good.’  He pulled me into a bear hug and then sort of jokingly said, ‘If you keep going, you can be something special.’ That is all I will need for the rest of my days,” he says with a satisfied sigh.

All of this was happening around the time Denzel’s son, Malcom Washington, was preparing his film, The Piano Lesson, for that year’s awards season. Suddenly, he and I are heaping praise on Danielle Deadwyler with Akinade insisting that “somebody give her the Viola [Davis] treatment” and find her roles that catapult her star. We spend an inordinate about of time discussing the roles both Deadwyler and Davis have played on screen.

Akinade recalls being in a cinema and “literally levitating“ when he watched Davis standing toe-to-toe with Meryl Streep in Doubt.

During a conversation last summer, Winslet revealed to me that Akinade’s role as Angel originally wasn’t as big a part as it has now become. “He’s so bloody good, he can do anything,” she said. The part grew through the two of them “just chatting,” is how Akinade puts it.

“I would get a text every now and then saying, ‘We just added this’ or ‘I think we’re going to get you more involved in this bit.’ I thought that’s really lovely because as much as it is a film about a family’s matriarch dying and the family coming back together, I also think it’s a real love letter to carers, nurses and the NHS, and the ways in which those people in that institution take care of the entire [British] nation for free.” 

He becomes visibly moved as he explains that his own father had been treated for cancer. “He beat cancer twice because of care – and he had that care for free.”

Akinade reckons that because Winslet gave him so much more to do in the film, “That through line became more potent – and therefore more personal for me – because it’s just a lovely little side story.”

Avoiding tokenism

I love that Angel is not a black character that can be deemed token. Akinade laughs then observes sharply that this can’t be the case when it comes to the NHS, “Because you go to any hospital and who’s looking after you?” He adds: “Yes, it would have been tokenism if it wasn’t true.”

His mother was very touched by Angel when she attended the London premiere. What the character does for the family in Goodbye June is such an act of empathy and generosity, the kind that’s not often publicly highlighted. Akinade’s a big brother to two sisters. His parents live in Manchester, as does his younger sibling, while his middle sister resides in London. He loves going home to visit where “it’s the place I’m my most comfortable self anywhere.”

There was never any pressure from his parents about him becoming an actor. They knew that the life is not always the easiest, but he’s grateful that they never suggested he become a doctor. Once they saw he was getting theater work regularly and then cast in Banana and Cucumber they knew he would be alright.

His widest variety of roles have been on stage. “There’s a bit more imagination there,” he says. However, he has had the best time working on screen in all manner of shows, including Heartstopper. In the Netflix series he plays Mr. Ajayi, and lauds the series for doing “so much for young LGBTQ people.”

Some people watching it, he says, “Wish they’d had this level of freedom, openness and care when I was at school because it does feel, in some cases, easier to be open and out about your sexuality or gender identity or whatever it may be now, than it was then, which is amazing.”

Working on other shows has been helpful for him, he says. “I’ve been gay a very long time, but when Cucumber was coming out I was like, ‘How do I navigate this?’ I called Russell T. Davis and he met me in Pret in Euston Station, and said, ‘There’s one question and one answer. Are you gay? Yes you are.’ He said, ‘If you don’t [embrace] that, you will spend your life terrified of being caught out and found out…You will be a half version of yourself. So are you? Yes. And on you move.’

“Then you are unburdened… from the fear of being caught out. It was a scary thing [but] it actually hasn’t held me back.”

Quite right too. Why should it matter? There are too many meaningless distinctions, he argues, but there are some useful ones too, he suggests. For instance, “You want to buy a sofa. When you talk to the assistant, you say, ‘I would like a soft sofa or a big sofa or an L-shaped sofa. They’re useful distinctions for what you want.

“But when you say to a person, ‘Daniel Day Lewis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, they are actors. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Forest Whittaker, Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson, they’re black actors. Why? What’s the difference? The job is exactly the same. So why put in the word black or gay or northern or working class before the job of actor, what does it do? What function does that distinction have? Serves no purpose or other than to other.”

Continuing, he says: “There are people that act and there are black people that act. I think that sets off prejudices in people’s heads.”

But sometimes the casting of an actor who is black can transform a role. We both jump on Cynthia Erivo in Wicked as an example. “Having a black woman play that role makes Elphaba’s difference more potent,” he says. “As soon as you include a person of color in something, it is going to be whether consciously or unconsciously, an aspect of that is going to become racialized – of course it is. Now you have Elphaba who’s green, played by a black woman. There is another layer, another nuance, that is challenging audiences to invest on a deeper level.”

Upcoming he has a television drama which for now he’s not able to discuss. In any event, he says he’s lucky to have worked with great stars such as Mirren and Dench. Initially, he admits he was “scared’” of meeting the former “because she’s Helen Mirren,” but he didn’t need to worry. “She was just the loveliest, so not starry and down to earth.”

The same was true for Dame Judi. When they did a run-through of The Vote at a church hall in Islington, he arrived early, and Dench and  Finty Williams, her daughter, pitched up shortly afterwards. “She went, ’Hello, I’m Judi’… And she went, ‘Feel my palm. Feel it… that’s cold sweat. I’m fucking terrified. Don’t judge me on what I do today.’ I said, ‘But you’re fucking Judi Dench!’ She said, ‘I fucking know who I am. Don’t judge me.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I won’t. Of course not.’”

Fisayo Akinade is already a great actor and a deeply caring dude. That’s why he steals Goodbye June with one tiny line.