The actor on playing heroes, the power of silence and style icons.

In one of Soho Hotel’s bright, floral wallpapered guest rooms, Mr Stephan James takes a beat to consider his every answer. It’s not that the If Beale Street Could Talk star is quiet, or unforthcoming – he simply has that rare gift for saying more than most even before he speaks.

The 25-year-old Canadian, an imposing 6ft, has already shouldered giants – “world heroes, not just black heroes” – playing the runner Mr Jesse Owens in Race (2016) and the civil-rights leader Mr John Lewis in Selma (2014). But working with the Academy Award-winning Moonlight director Mr Barry Jenkins on If Beale Street Could Talk, an adaptation of Mr James Baldwin’s novel of the same name, was “like a dream come true”. The film has garnered three Oscar nominations, for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (for Ms Regina King) and Best Original Music Score (for Mr Nicholas Britell), and Mr James says that much of its power lies in what’s left unsaid.

“There are moments when 30 seconds of silence tell you so much”, he says. “In Beale Street, because we’re working so closely with Baldwin, an incredibly descriptive, vivid writer, not all of those words and emotions can be conveyed through dialogue. But I had so much inner dialogue to reflect on even in the moments of silence that help colour the overall performance.”

It shows. As Fonny Hunt, a working-class man falsely imprisoned by racist authorities while his girlfriend Tish (Ms KiKi Layne) is pregnant with their child, Mr James spends much of the film’s most potent moments simmering behind a plate of prison glass, hewn by injustice from the woman he loves. “The fact that Baldwin wrote these words 45 years ago and yet still so much resonates today in 2019 is part of the reason you want to be part of making a film like this,” he says. “Part of it’s just the education, being able to say that perhaps these things still exist in a higher degree than they did back then.”

Mr Jenkins recognised Mr James’ particular talent for turning silence into an art form. “I wanted an actor whose presence was so large,” the director told The Atlantic magazine, “that even through these barriers of glass, and through the burden of whatever doubt the audience might have, he can still express his full self.” Mr James in turn calls Mr Jenkins “one of the best… He’s not scared of the moment, to let things play out, he doesn’t rush anything. His attention to detail is next to none.”

The actor is unwavering about what the film represents. “I’d never seen a film with a complete black love between black soulmates who are people who have loved each other their entire lives”, he says.

Hollywood is catching on slowly – while Beale Street is in the mix this awards season, it comes perhaps in response to the “#OscarsSoWhite” hashtag highlighting the all-white slate of acting nominees four years ago. “I’d be wrong to say we’re not heading in the right direction,” the actor says. “Have we reached our destination? I don’t think so. But with films like Black Panther, Green Book and Beale Street getting the attention that they are, it certainly makes me hopeful thinking that the executives and powers that be understand that people want to see these stories”.

Even off-screen, he stands out, as at ease on the red carpet in Louis Vuitton and Gucci as he is in his trademark everyday look: Timberlands, Canada Goose jacket and oversized lumberjack shirts.  

“In terms of style, I’m inspired by Pharrell, Kanye West, A$AP Rocky,” says Mr James. “I like playing with size, playing with things that are too big for you. Gucci has crazy pieces. Back in October, I wore a burnt-orange three-piece suit from a designer named Greyscale, a black designer based in LA. That’s probably the most out there I’ve been.”

He lives between Toronto and LA; he’s at the gym every day “when I’m not living out of a suitcase”, plays volleyball and basketball for cardio and catches “all the Lakers and Rapids games that I can”. And he paints. “Neo-expressionist art,” he says. “I’m not a fine artist, I’m not Picasso, but I’m hugely inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat and street art he did.” It’s a portrait of an artist as a young man. And every silence paints a thousand words.

If Beale Street Could Talk is out now

The men featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown

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