Jodie Turner Smith won one of the awards/superlatives in Glamour UK’s Women of the Year issue. She also got a cover, which you can see here. Jodie really is breaking out in a big way, although I think part of it is that she’s just saying yes to everything she’s offered because she needs the money. She’s going through a divorce, and while everything seems pleasant with Joshua Jackson, she wants to be able to support herself and buy a home in LA. Anyway, while Jodie has, in interviews past, been somewhat scattered, she comes across really well in this piece. Very mature, very centered. Some highlights:

Her daughter is in school in LA while Jodie works in London: “This is going to be the thing I look back on and think, ‘Wow, I survived that.’ This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

On money & freedom: “I don’t have a house,” she says, alluding to the fact she rents her house in LA. “When I have my house, then I’m going to achieve another level of success.” But it’s the privileges of success that she strives for more than anything. “Success grants freedom. It grants you the ability to choose differently. I want to be able to look after my family in perpetuity. I want to have enough passive income that I can work a little bit less. I want to not be in the middle of a divorce. That will be a success, too.”

The adjustment period after she filed for divorce: “It’s an adjustment period for anyone when they split up with someone, because you’re used to being with your child all the time. But nobody hands you a manual. Everyone’s trying to figure it out. Each parent has a different life, and especially if the reason why you’re splitting up is because you have different lives, it’s only further complicated by how you’re going to coparent.”

On Joshua’s reported relationship with Lupita Nyong’o: “He can do whatever he wants. Just be good to Juno and be good to Juno’s mum, because I’m going to be Juno’s mum forever. It’s really not for me to have an opinion on his journey.”

Have your own money no matter what: “Get your money right, because at the end of the day, it allows you the independence that you need to not be controlled. Independence is not free. It costs money, and money is power.”

On Amandla Stenberg, her costar in the now-canceled The Acolyte: “She put so much care and thought and love into that, and it’s disappointing to feel like your studio is not having your back in a very public-facing way,” she adds, alluding to how she felt Disney didn’t support Amandla at the time. “They’ve got to stop doing this thing where they don’t say anything when people are getting f–king dog-piled on the internet with racism and bullsh-t. It’s just not fair to not say anything. It’s really unfair. It would just be nice if the people that have all the money” – whether that be Disney or any studio – “were showing their support and putting their feet down,” she proposes. “Say this is unacceptable: ‘You’re not a fan if you do this.’ Make a really big statement and just see if any money leaves. I bet you it won’t, because people of colour, and especially Black people, make up a very large percentage of buying power. They might find that it’s actually more lucrative for them, but everyone’s using ‘woke’ like it’s a dirty word.”

She’s hopeful that the tide will shift one day: “Opinions change. What’s in vogue changes. We’re gonna get there at some point, to that place where people stop having a stick up their arse about people of colour being a part of IPs that were created by white people. You know why? Because we’re never going to f–king stop participating.”

People of color get blamed when something is unsuccessful: “We don’t get to fail upwards like a lot of white me. I just feel that some people are allowed to grow and others have to be perfect, and if they’re not perfect – even when it’s great – people want to f–king tear it apart.”

[From Glamour UK]

What she says about Disney and Amandla – it’s very true, and Disney needs to stop playing footsie with racist Star Wars “fans.” Disney is making the same choice, over and over, and they’re screwing over actors of color who just want to work within these franchises without harassment and all of the online sh-t. I like how mature she’s been about her divorce – she hasn’t bad-mouthed Joshua at all, and it seems clear that they’re successfully coparenting right now. I hope that continues.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of British Glamour.