Ghanaian British Actress, Michaela Coel On ‘I May Destroy You’ A Series About Her Sexual Assault

Ghanaian British Actress, Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson known professionally as Michaela Coel, wrote and starred in a new BBC comedy-drama series, ‘I May Destroy You’ which tackles issues of consent, sexual assault, feminism, race and sexuality.

Her parents, Ghanaian immigrants, separated before she was born, so Coel lived with her mother and older sister, Jasmine. They were one of a handful of Black families in the building. It wasn’t until secondary school that she met other Black kids her age — children of the African and Caribbean diaspora, mainly from Ghana and Nigeria.

The BAFTA-award–winning comedy Chewing Gum writer and star is also a screenwriter, director, producer, singer, songwriter, poet, and playwright.

While writing the second season of Chewing Gum in 2016, she took a break to meet up with a friend at a bar, her drink was spiked, and she was sexually assaulted by two men.

She found herself returning to consciousness at the Fremantle Media production office, where she’d been working, her phone smashed, and finished the episode in what she would later learn was a drug-induced fugue state.

Over the next 24 hours, she slowly began to piece together that the image of a man in her head with a pink shirt and flaring nostrils wasn’t something plucked from the ether but a memory of the night before.

 I May Destroy You is the culmination of her attempt to make sense of the senseless — an epic journey of autofiction that manages to somehow be both of the moment and beyond it.

She spoke to Vulture on channelling her experience as a victim sexual assault into a television series.

Watch the trailer of ‘I May Destroy You

I May Destroy You is a British comedy-drama television series created, written, co-directed, and executive produced by Michaela Coel for BBC One and HBO. The series is set in London and stars Coel as Arabella, a young woman who must rebuild her life after her drink is spiked.

The series premiered on 8 June 2020 on BBC One and on 7 June 2020 on HBO.

CREDITS

• Photographs by Ruth Ossai
• Styling by Ola Ebiti
• Hair by Charlotte Mensah using Manketti oil products at Premier Hair and Makeup
• Makeup by Bernicia Boateng
• Photography assistance by Ryan Connolly
• Styling assistance by Leonor Carvalho

Source:

• Wikipedia
• Vulture
• New York Mag
• Mirror
• BBC