Olivia Colman is opening up about her personal connection to her film Jimpa.
In the film Jimpa, which released on Feb. 6, Colman stars as Hannah, who takes her nonbinary teenager Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) to visit their grandfather Jim (known as “Jimpa”), who came out as gay, in Amsterdam. “When Frances expresses a desire to stay with Jimpa for a year abroad, Hannah is forced to reconsider her parenting beliefs and the stories she has long told about her family,” a film synopsis reads. John Lithgow stars as Jim.
In a Thursday interview with Them alongside Jimpa director Sophie Hyde ahead of the film’s release, the Oscar winner expressed gratitude for being “welcomed into” the queer community when asked about her varied roles that have included stories highlighting the community including Heartstopper, The Favourite and Beautiful People: “I find the most loving and the most beautiful stories are from that community. And I feel really honored to be welcomed.”
Colman, who is married to husband Ed Sinclair, went on to explain her personal resonance to the film and why she has always felt “sort of nonbinary.”
“Throughout my whole life, I’ve had arguments with people where I’ve always felt sort of nonbinary,” she said. “Don’t make that a big sort of title! But I’ve never felt massively feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man. And he goes, ‘Yeah, I get that.’ So I do feel at home and at ease. I feel like I have a foot in various camps. I know many people who do.”
In the interview, Jimpa director Hyde supported Colman’s thoughts adding, “What you’re talking about is so familiar. We can have different positions and stuff, but because we’re raised as women, we’re socialized as women, but that doesn’t mean that’s not a limiting idea for us — the idea of being a woman or womanhood. It doesn’t necessarily fit for all of us. I think these binaries of gender are problematic for many of us. It’s like, how can you fit? There are problems sometimes. A lot of us have been limited by this.”
Colman noted that “men are limited too” with the “expectation they have to live up to.”
“I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the ‘strong one,’ or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I’ve always felt like that. It’s only now, and talking to Aud and their community, suddenly I’m not an oddity,” Colman said. “I’m not alone in saying, ‘I don’t feel like it’s binary.’ And I loved that. I came away from making this film with, ‘Yeah, I knew I wasn’t alone.’ I think I choose all these films because they’re films that speak to me. I want to help in telling those stories.”