What Janelle Monáe has accomplished in under 10 years of her acting career is impressive. She started way below where most actresses start, and quickly obliterated the mindset of “musicians can’t act.” On the contrary, her early roles proved she could tackle any genre, and soon she began paving the way for more prominent leads in Hollywood.
Today, the singer/actress has a solid foundation for a career in cinema and one that’s been elevated by very good scripts with a few exceptions. We’re mentioning this because, as you’ll see below, this is a relevant point of Monáe most famous role in Antebellum. A curious thing about the latest part of her career is how she perfectly portrays characters that require ambiguity and duality.
These are the best performances by Janelle Monáe, for now.
7 The Glorias
In the character-driven biography The Glorias, Monáe plays revolutionary leader Dorothy Pitman Hughes as she accompanies Gloria Steinem in fighting the system. Her role is too short for our taste, considering the importance of Hughes in the feminist movement of the ’70s, but the young actor does enough to inject authenticity and substance into the role. In the case of performances that are all about physicality, Monáe does a great job of portraying a fierce woman whose adversaries are still pissed off.
6 Harriet
Playing the supporting character Marie Buchanon in the Harriet Tubman biographical piece Harriet was key to Monáe making Hollywood notice her skills. She plays a free woman who helps the abolitionist movement and helps Tubman in her journey to become the historical figure she’s known for. Seeing Monáe’s version of Buchanon standing up to the man before tragedy is essential to understand her acting abilities.
The significance of Tubman in the African-American community must have been enough for Monáe to jump at the chance of playing such an important figure, and she actually proves it by playing the character with unbeatable dramatic stamina.
5 Moonlight
In Barry Jenkins’ 2016 masterpiece Moonlight, Monáe plays Teresa, Juan’s girlfriend and possibly the only mother figure to Chiron. Chiron has grown under the shadow of his abusive and manipulative mother, and he only has Teresa and Juan as leaders who teach him about the hard facts of life. Teresa’s leverage in Chiron’s journey is crucial, as Juan is off the picture at some point, and he only looks up to the woman who inevitably “raised” him as her own.
4 Hidden Figures
The first part of Monáe’s notable career in drama consists mostly of roles based on people that actually existed. Monáe had enough confidence to tackle the performances with a force that made those characters her own. In Hidden Figures, Monáe confirmed her presence was essential to keep the film fresh and optimistic; every piece of her dialogue is filled with wit and resonates even after the film’s over. In the film, she plays aerospace engineer Mary Jackson, who alongside her partners, was a key player in the space race (Jackson was NASA’s first Black female engineer).
3 Antebellum
The fact that Antebellum is a terrible film doesn’t mean performances in it are bad as well. On the contrary, Monáe’s role as Eden, or Veronica if you prefer, is very interesting. The challenge is to keep the character fresh after the film’s inconsistency damages the narrative from beginning to end. In the end, she wins as Eden becomes one of the few good things about a film that went under the radar but was decent enough to make the industry trust Monáe to be able to lead in every genre possible.
Let’s give Antebellum a shot again in a couple of years. We can’t get over the fact it didn’t have the impact it should have had with such a good premise.
2 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Bets are raised for Monáe as she tries a new genre and plays two characters with entirely different personalities in Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Luckily she gets a lot of help from an exceptional script that has enough mystery to keep her character relevant alongside a powerful group of supporting characters. Not that we needed this film to confirm it, but Monáe’s performance was so good she proved Hollywood could rely on her being the lead of an important film (a film that’s also very good and entertaining). It’s only a matter of time until offers of playing lead characters arrive at her doorstep. We’re pretty sure of it.
1 Homecoming
Janelle Monáe’s best performance to date is on television. Homecoming was released in 2018 with Julia Roberts as the main character in Season 1. Following up wasn’t going to be easy, and Monáe does a superb job at playing the victim of a government program with the ability to mess with people’s minds. Jacqueline, or Alex if you prefer, wakes up in a boat without knowledge of who she is. Season 2 of the show consists of her searching for her identity and the horrible truth behind the program.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
