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Letitia Wright: 'I've had people tell me you should stop talking about Jesus'

by Cara Bentley
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The Christian actress Letitia Wright has spoken in an interview about turning down big roles because of her ethics and speaking out about Jesus in public. 

Letitia Wright, 27, is most famous for her role in Black Panther but has also starred in Doctor Who and Black Mirror. 

She is also vocal about her Christian faith, taking part in a devotional series with the YouVersion Bible app and posting about her faith on Instagram (prior to deleting her social media counts). 

In a recent interview with The Independent ahead of the new drama I am Danielle showing on Channel 4, she spoke about how her faith sustains her in her career: 

"The world is so fickle and there's not much that you can really put your hope in to make you feel whole.

"Even now I'm going through a new transformative stage of my life with understanding who I am, but with God you can really just get through these situations. It's been beautiful to have my faith in Jesus, which is worth more than anything."

The BAFTA winning actress has previously spoken to Premier about temporarily giving up acting for a few months to focus on God. 

 

She's also jokily criticised magazines in the past for cutting out her quotes about God. 

Wright told the newspaper that her faith in Christ has kept her alive, but that some people around have advised her to keep it to herself:

"I've had people tell me, 'Hey, you should stop talking about Jesus.' But there will always be pressures to keep things private that the world may not agree with. And I'm not trying to force anything on anyone. I'm sharing my truth because I probably wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't for Jesus, I probably wouldn't have been able to cope."

"And if someone saves you and brings light and love to your life, you want to share that. You don't want to hide it."

Wright got into a bit of a Twitter trouble last year when she tweeted a video, with the prayer hands emoji as a caption, that promoted anti-vax conspiracies. 

She expressed annoyance at the time for being 'cancelled' when she was just trying to raise 'concerns' and think for herself. 

Reflecting on it now, she said: "I guess I realised that...I realised that people will say that you said things that you did not say. And that was hard."

She has since been off Twitter and Instagram for eight months and said: "It's been brilliant. I've been able to go away and educate myself, read books and connect with my family.

"There's not been this pressure of expectation...Everyone should just step away from social media."

 

 

Turning down certain roles has also been part of her journey in the acting industry, but not something she regrets:

"I'm trying to be truthful and honest about what I can be a vessel for.

"If you don't feel like you're the right vessel for a particular project then you shouldn't do it because you're wasting everybody's time.

"A script will come that will require me to do certain things I don't want to do, but other people will say, 'If you do this, it's going to enhance your career.'

"It's about not moulding to the pressure of what it means to be successful, I want to define who I am."

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