Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje has said the script for his first film came out of sleepless nights. He wrote hundreds of pages about his own childhood before he could rest.
The film was Farming (2018). It tells the story of a practice little known outside the communities involved: from the 1960s, many Nigerian parents studying or working in Britain placed their children with white British foster families, often in working-class areas, in the hope of giving them a better start. The practice was known as “farming”.
His own story
Akinnuoye-Agbaje was one of those children. Born in London to Nigerian parents, he was fostered by a white family in Tilbury, Essex. He has described growing up amid racism and violence and, as a teenager, joining a skinhead gang, a group whose members were hostile to people like him, in a search for belonging.
The film
Farming follows Enitan, a boy fostered by a white family, played as a teenager by Damson Idris. Kate Beckinsale plays his foster mother, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, John Dagleish and the Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji in the cast. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018. Critics praised Idris’s performance and the film’s courage, though its violence and intensity made it difficult to watch for some.
Akinnuoye-Agbaje has spoken of hoping the film could help heal people who went through foster care and their families.
Oz and Lost
Before directing, Akinnuoye-Agbaje was best known as an actor. He played Simon Adebisi in HBO’s prison drama Oz, a feared and memorable character, and Mr Eko, a Nigerian former warlord turned priest, in Lost. He has appeared in films including Thor: The Dark World, Suicide Squad and Concussion, and in the series Game of Thrones.
Law before acting
He studied law in London and earned a master’s degree before turning to acting, an unusual path that he has credited with teaching him discipline.
Why the film matters
Thousands of Nigerian children were fostered in Britain in this way, and many have spoken since about identity, belonging and the cost of growing up between two worlds. Farming brought their story to a wide audience for the first time.
He made his name playing frightening men on television. His most personal work was about a frightened boy he once was.
