Speaking to Empire about the making of upcoming biopic Bob Marley: One Love, Ben-Adir revealed he had his own dedicated area on the Barbie set, where he could de-Ken and get into the mindset of Marley: the “Bob station”, as he calls it. “You know behind the slide, in the room where the Kens watch The Godfather? I had a little desk in there which I’d sit between takes, practising the patois,” the actor reveals. “I was with Ryan [Gosling] the other day, and he said, ‘You were on a mad one, bruv! One minute you were Basketball Ken, the next you were Mr Redemption Song!’ I don’t think he’d experienced anything like it.”
Director Reinaldo Marcus Green was stunned by the lengths Ben-Adir went to to capture the spirit of Bob Marley. “Man, he went on a relentless pursuit of who Bob was,” the filmmaker says. “He went off the deep in search of him.” But for the actor, that was the only choice – speaking to many of Marley’s collaborators, and travelling to Jamaica to get into the mindset. “There’s not a road in that country that doesn’t have a picture of the man on some kind of mural. Bob is everywhere,” Ben-Adir says. “I think everybody knew we were on sacred ground with Bob. I’ve never been reminded more by people not to fuck something up more than on this movie. ‘Hey, you’re doing Bob Marley? Do not fuck it up!’” With all that work at the Bob station, we’re sure every little thing is gonna be alright.