Even 150 years later, slavery remains America’s greatest shame. Before The Civil War, wealthy southern aristocrats owned human beings as property. The practice remains so controversial, there are still people who insist the war wasn’t fought over slavery directly, but over the more abstract notion of “states’ rights,” using impressive mental gymnastics to downplay the role of slavery in the South, thus glossing over the treatment of innocent black people who were forced to live their whole lives in bondage.

Harriet Tubman was born a slave, but she was not destined to die as property, but as a free woman. Her story is now being told in the new historical drama, Harriet, directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Cynthia Erivo as the legendary woman who choose to “be free or die.” The film is an uncompromising look at what life was like for people born into a world without hope, but who would nonetheless dream of a better day and risk their own lives to achieve their righteous goal.

While promoting Harriet, Lemmons and Erivo sat down with Screen Rant to discuss their new film and its monolithic main character. Erivo discusses her take on portraying one of the most courageous figures in American history, while Lemmons talks about the immense responsibility of crafting a story that does justice to its subject matter.

Harriet Tubman, in this movie… I’m trying to think of how to describe her character. She has such a combination of fury and… I don’t know if it’s the right word, but peace, of determination and purpose. what were some of the things you tapped into while preparing for this role, and on the set?

When you’re preparing to make this period piece, this story about what is still one of the most relevant times, and becoming, oddly, even more relevant today, was there anything you learned about the era that you weren’t aware of previously?

Cynthia Erivo: It was that. It is a combination of, I love that, fury and peace. It’s the complete sureness of what is right. And so it was tapping into what it would feel like to be that determined, to be so sure of something that nothing could veer you from the path of it. It took wonderful direction from Kasi, it took research. It took some spiritual searches. It took some preparation for myself, mentally and physically, to be ready. I think the idea of getting one’s body and one’s mind ready for something allows for the space to create something. That’s what I was trying to do before I got to set.

It’s stunning to me, and I think so many people, that it’s taken this long to get a real studio-made Harriet Tubman biopic. Can you talk a little bit about the responsibility of doing this story justice and everything that you wanted to put in there?

Kasi Lemmons: There were. Actually, there was quite a bit. One of the things that was quite interesting and compelling in this story was that this community of enslaved people lived with and right next to free people, and intermarried. Harriet’s husband was free, but she was not. Her children would be born slaves, if they had children. Her (Harriet’s) father was free, but her mother, sisters, and brothers were not. That was very interesting to me, and incredibly moving, the choices people had to make. Her brother left his wife in childbirth because he was going to be sold, and he knew he had to run. This was the moment he could do it. Those kinds of choices, her sister not wanting to leave her children. It was that kind of tension of family, that actual family drama, that motivated her.

More: Watch the Official Harriet Trailer

Kasi Lemmons: Well, we like to think that we’re paving the way for other stories to be done, as well. This story is important. If you ask anybody, “What’s the Harriet Tubman story about?” They’re gonna say she ran, she escaped. She escaped slavery and then she went back to liberate others. So I really wanted that. I wanted her escape from slavery, and the time she was doing this work, in the decade before The Civil War. It’s a very powerful decade in American history, and it’s when she was doing this very active, very heroic work.

  • Harriet Release Date: 2019-11-01