Kingsley Ben-Adir is an acclaimed stage and screen actor, perhaps best known to audiences prior to the release of “Bob Marley: One Love” for his role as Colonel Ben Younger in “Peaky Blinders” and as Basketball Ken in the blockbuster 2023 movie “Barbie.” He recalls in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he was approached by Marley’s son, Ziggy Marley, a reggae star in his own right who is a producer of the movie, to portray the iconic singer. “I was completely convinced that there’s no point in auditioning for this. I can’t sing. I can’t dance,” Ben-Adir said. “My question was if they’d been on a worldwide search and they said yes. And I said maybe they should go on another one.”
Nevertheless, the team behind the biopic was certain that they had found their leading man in Ben-Adir, who has experience playing Black icons, such as Barack Obama and Malcolm X. The actor was won over, and took singing and guitar lessons to allow him to portray Marley’s performances convincingly. He also spent hours alone studying and transcribing Marley’s speech and his live performances and met with Marley’s former bandmates and friends to get tips on how to perform and behave more like him.
