Interview: Aja Naomi King Talks Female Friendship and ‘Lessons in Chemistry’

Aja Naomi King made a name for herself on How to Get Away with Murder and just recently celebrated her first Emmy nomination for her work on Lessons in Chemistry. King earned the nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie. As Harriet Sloane, not only did only did King bring light to what it was like to live during the the 1960s, but she also helped tell the story of a critically important neighborhood in LA called Sugar Hill that was essentially bulldozed to make way for a freeway.

Over Zoom, we talked with the actress about her work on Lessons in Chemistry and discussed her character in depth. She talked about  Harriet’s expanded role as compared to the book and the themes of female friendship and how powerful that is through the story. She also chatted about working opposite Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman. Read on or listen below for the full conversation.

Ayla Ruby: So hi again. It’s wonderful to meet you. Wonderful to talk.

Aja Naomi King: So wonderful. Thank you for taking the time.

Ayla Ruby: Sure. Congratulations on the nomination. It’s so well deserved and just wonderful and amazing.

Aja Naomi King: Thanks. I mean, I’m still like, “Wow, this really happened.” Yeah. I keep saying, “Is this possible? Is this actually possible? Is this real?” And I’m like, “Yeah, you can believe it. It’s real.”

Ayla Ruby: What does it mean for you? What was the moment like finding out? Anything you can share or want to share even?

Aja Naomi King: Yeah. Well, so I knew it was coming up. I knew they were going to announce it, and so I went to the Television Academy website to watch the announcement online and I’m just standing in my kitchen while my child is playing behind me.

Ayla Ruby: I understand that, believe me.

Aja Naomi King: Right. And my husband was with me and we’re just waiting and watching and we’re looking at the announcement that they stream and we’re like, “Oh, okay, okay. They said that, they’ve said that.” And then all of a sudden the announcement was like, “All right, and you can see who else is nominated online.” And we were like, “Huh?”

We didn’t know that they only announced the best lead this best lead that. So we were standing there waiting and we were like, “Oh. Oh.” And we’re grabbing our phones trying to go online. And then I see that I have these missed calls and text messages from my manager and she’s like, “Where are you? You just got nominated for an Emmy.” I saw her text, I put my phone down, I put my head down, and I turned to my husband and he’s looking at me like, “What? What? What happened?” And I’m like, “I just got nominated.” And yes, it was a very joyful, just a wonderful, wonderful moment of, is this real? Could this really be happening? Yeah, it felt so special.

Ayla Ruby: It’s so well deserved. And Harriet is so interesting too, and I’d love to talk more about her. She’s so different from the book and from what I understand, you auditioned for someone else, but you were amazing in the audition and they had to have you. Can you talk about that at all?

Aja Naomi King: I really love the way they put this. We were discussing an entirely different character that they were creating, and I mean, they got rid of that entirely because Lee [Eisenberg] specifically was like, “Harriet’s such an instrumental part of the story and the novel. So for anyone that loved reading the book, not having that very pivotal character would do a disservice to the story.” And so I had been brought in to play this other role and he was like, he had originally said he wanted to merge the two, but I think it was more so just shifting me over to this other thing. And I had read the book and I knew what a phenomenal character Harriet was, but I had questions. I was curious as to how I was going to be able to shift into that and do it in a way that worked not only historically, but also still served the story of the book.

And I love what we were able to create because so much of the purpose of Harriet in the book is really to be this confident confidant and to watch this community grow between these two women and see this female friendship blossom and to unearth just the extraordinary power of female friendship in that way and the ways in which we serve each other. And then for me, when they talked about wanting to explore, also telling the story of Sugar Hill and also just broadening out this world so that you are getting a richer tapestry of what this time period actually looked like, to me, the value in that was phenomenal. To be able to do that and to tell the story in this way and to explore this neighborhood, but also to explore what this black woman’s life was and what motherhood for her looked like.

And that shared experience of how my version of the world and your version of the world are completely different because even though we are both women, we’re of different races and people are going to treat us differently and how can we forge a bond in the midst of that, but also have a radical transparency and love between one another? So yeah, so they had laid out how they wanted to serve the story and honor Harriet and what the book had given us with this character and then broaden it out into this really beautiful thing. And yeah, I mean it was a really phenomenal experience to add that texture to it.

Ayla Ruby: There’s a pivotal scene, I guess, series of scenes, that encapsulates everything that you mentioned. It’s the kitchen scene with Elizabeth and Harriet. And I’d love if you could talk about your choices that went into that as an actress, and anything you can share about just that whole moment between Elizabeth and Harriet.

Aja Naomi King: Yeah, I mean, we talk about radical transparency between friends especially. And I think it was really important to Brie and myself that the friendship felt very earned, and that was one of those scenes where they really earned this friendship because they are so honest with one another. And in that moment, Elizabeth is being honest about the repercussions of her actions and how that impacts the people around her and the fear involved in that. And I’m being honest about the repercussions for an entire race and what our responsibility is to each other. And I mean, I really love the way that scene was written because it was so beautifully stated when she’s apologizing to me and I’m basically saying, “This isn’t like you’re missing my birthday party.”

There’s something deeper and more meaningful at play here. And we have to understand the opportunities we have and the audience we have and our ability to enact a greater impact. And I think for me, the choices going into that scene was it had to be done with so much love because this is a person that Harriet really loves. And for Harriet in this moment, in order to feel loved back, in order to feel loved in return, she needs to feel heard. She needs to feel understood. So a lot of that scene was, for me, it has to be said so clearly and so gently and so tenderly in a way because it’s almost like, not to make it like parent-child, but in a way in a moment it almost is because it is such a learning moment. And it’s like when you do something wrong and your parent yells at you and you just shut them out versus when you do something wrong and your parent is like, “I’m just so disappointed in you right now,” and it just hits you so hard because you hear them so well.

And for me, that’s what the essence of that moment is. It’s like, “What has this relationship been over these years if you still don’t understand this and if you can’t see this? And if you can’t see this, then you can’t truly see me. And then what do we have?” And it brings all that into question. So I think because Harriet is so hurt in this moment because she’s realizing that there isn’t an understanding that hasn’t opened up or broken open for Elizabeth yet, and she feels this urgent need to explain it to the friend that she loves and has to be heard, but also has to honor her own feelings of hurt. And I think that’s why the scene ends with her leaving because it is really painful to be like, “I can’t believe I have to say this to you. I can’t believe you don’t understand that and that I have to explain this and that is painful for me, Harriet, to have to do and I’m going to need space once I say all this to you.”

And that’s how we wrapped up that scene. So yeah, it had to be done with a loving kindness and care that I think to be able to really explore the depths up her hurt and also the value of what this friendship has been and what she needs it to be. Sorry, that was a very long answer.

Ayla Ruby: No, no. I keep thinking about, you keep mentioning friendship, and I keep thinking about that in the context of Harriet and also there’s the friendship with Elizabeth, but there’s also the friendship with Calvin, which is so interesting. And I was wondering if you could talk about what went into that for you and how that came about as an actress to bring that to life.

Aja Naomi King: Yeah. I mean, investing in that, investing in all these relationships from a character standpoint was so easy because Brie and Lewis are just those kind of people where when you’re with them, you just love them.

So that just felt really good and I loved our basis around that, this notion that he lives in this neighborhood and we had a curiosity around one another, and it gets revealed later that when we first met and he learned that I work in a legal office and that’s how things start with us. And then just having this shared love of music and him being an outsider and me, with my husband going off to war, being able to lean on him as a friend and to bring him into my family in that way, I think it was such a beautiful thing to get to explore that and to see what that is like, because especially in that time period, your neighbors, your church, that was your community. Those were the people in your lives, the people that helped you, the people that would build with you. That’s what you had.

And it was just so great getting to ground that in this… Harriet is the kind of woman who just is taking on so much and doing it with very little help. And so when she’s able to lean on or rely on someone, it becomes really meaningful to her and it’s something she cherishes. And so the loss of him, and I thought this tie-in was so great that that would be the way in which Elizabeth and I could more deeply connect because of our shared love for this person that we both valued that maybe the rest of the world didn’t understand or value. And being able to have that nugget of connection evolve into being a woman in motherhood and understanding what that oppressive force can feel like when you’re fighting the system to say, “This is how I choose to show up in the world regardless of how you want me to portray myself.”

Just all those connections and that friendship and that value system, it builds into the story so magically. The way it came together, it was like, wow, it ended up being so perfect. And yeah, I just really loved the way all the puzzle pieces came together and that to just make it all fit and really ground so much of this in friendship and love and community.

Sorry, I’m going off a little bit of a tangent.

Ayla Ruby: That’s okay. I love it.

Aja Naomi King: I think about, we live in a time now with social media and the news and TV and we see so much of the world, but we do it from such an isolated place and we consume so much in terms of what’s happening all over, but it feels a lot less connected because it’s not happening on this really interpersonal level. And so it was so wonderful to get to explore that. Yes, that’s what this time was. All you could do was connect with people one-on-one, and that became your value system. And it’s such a beautiful thing when you think about community and family and how important that was and because it was all you had. So yeah. So yeah.

Ayla Ruby: You make me want to go…. I watched it again before us talking, but you make me want to watch it yet again. So I love the passion and it’s fantastic. I know we’re just about at time, but is there anything else you want people to know about you, about anything you’re working on or about the show?

Aja Naomi King: I mean, I have to say working on this project was just the most phenomenal experience that I’ve had as an actor. I was just surrounded by, in my opinion, just the top of the top in all the realms of artistry, the directing, the sets, the costumes, the hair, the makeup. We really built this world and I am just utterly grateful that I got to take part in it, and I am beyond thrilled for all the fruit that this experience has continued to bear for me. Yeah, pinching myself. Utterly grateful.

Ayla Ruby: Oh, well, thank you so much. I think that’s a beautiful note to end on, and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk.