Adjoa Andoh Q&A: 'Life is a miracle – don't waste it on not being yourself'

New Statesman​

22-05-2025

Illustration by Kristian Hammerstad
Adjoa Andoh was born in Bristol in 1963. As a stage actor she has played lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and on screen made her Hollywood debut in Invictus (2009). Since 2020 she has played Lady Danbury in the Netflix series Bridgerton. Andoh is a supporter of the Multibank charity initiative.
What's your earliest memory?
Sitting on the floor in the kitchen of our flat in Leeds and looking up at my mum by the sink with the window's light behind her. It was before my brother was born, so I was maybe two years old.
Who are your heroes?
Pippi Longstocking is my childhood hero. I wore red tights on my head to be her – a bold, brave girl who had adventures! My adult hero is Nelson Mandela. During apartheid-era South Africa, my Ghanaian-English family was illegal.
What book last changed your thinking?
Virginia Axline's Dibs in Search of Self. It was the book chosen by Harriett Gilbert, the presenter of Radio 4's A Good Read. I was a guest. Axline, a psychologist, wrote it in the Sixties about a five-year-old-boy she was treating. It made me really think about the profound impact our adult behaviours have on the psyches of small children.
What political figure do you look up to?
Again, Nelson Mandela. Someone very human – full of joy, anger, appetite, self-doubt; making his life one of brilliant strategy, patience and self-sacrifice in the service of freedom for all people. His humanity is all the more courageous, because more touching.
What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?
Advert jingles from the late Sixties, early Seventies – the bar is not high!
In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?
There is no other time I'd prefer – are you kidding? We have anaesthetics, contraception, indoor plumbing, the vote and a general acceptance that all human beings are of equal value – although that last is frequently tested.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe
What TV show could you not live without?
The American sitcom series Black-ish, created by Kenya Barris.
Who would paint your portrait?
Lucian Freud.
What's your theme tune?
Currently 'Marching on Together', the anthem of Leeds United Football Club. But eternally, Roberta Flack's version of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
It was from my brother: lean into the yes of no because life is a miracle; blink and it's gone; don't waste it on not being you. I am trying to follow it and failing daily.
What's currently bugging you?
The fear and the unthought-of damage the Supreme Court's ruling on the definition of a woman is immediately causing in the lives of our vulnerable trans population.
What single thing would make your life better?
Peace.
When were you happiest?
Taking the curtain call at the press night of Stuff Happens by David Hare at the National Theatre in 2004. I played Condoleezza Rice. Seeing David Hare's Plenty in 1979 made me want to be an actor. In that 2004 curtain call, I felt I had landed where I was built to be.
In another life, what job might you have chosen?
I would have been an architect.
Are we all doomed?
No. Human beings are built for hope. It is why we love a sunrise and blossom in the spring, and cry at kindness.
[See also: Can you ever forgive Nick Clegg?]
Related
This article appears in the 21 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Britain's Child Poverty Epidemic