Lesser-known facts about the Viola Davis’ Oscar-nominated The Woman King

The period drama The Woman King is a fictionalised retelling of the events that led to the formation of Agojie, the all-female warrior unit of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Viola Davis stars in the lead role as the leader of Agojie and the future Woman King of Dahomey. The film received several nominations this awards season, with Davis in particular singled out for several accolades. So if you loved the film and Viola Davis’ promising portrayal as the badass female warrior, you’ll surely want to know lesser-known facts related to the action film. So for today’s Now You Know, here’s all that you possibly didn’t know about The Woman King.

1. To prepare for the roles of the Agojie, the actors playing the feared female warriors went through a gruelling and rigorous training schedule. Apart from lifting weights for 90 minutes and sessions with stunt coordinators lasting over three hours daily, they also had to pick up essential martial art forms such as jujitsu, Chinese Wushu, and a Filipino knife fighting technique called Kali.
2. Despite its gripping story and period setting, the writers have taken several liberties when it comes to historical inaccuracies. In the film, Viola Davis’ Nanisca confronts King Ghezo, played by John Boyega, concerning the depravity of slave trading with the Portuguese. She also suggests the palm oil trade as an alternative source of revenue for the kingdom. However, as it turns out, this conversation never transpired in real life as Nanisca is a fictional character, unlike Ghezo. Furthermore, Dahomey never abolished the slave trade out of compassion for their fellow Africans. As a matter of fact, it was the ban imposed by England in 1840 which stopped Dahomey from profiting from the slave trade.
3. Lupita Nyong'o was originally cast to play the role of Izogie in the film. However, Nyong'o dropped out of the project and the role eventually went to Lashana Lynch. There has been much speculation about the reasons that made Nyong'o duck out of the project. One of the popular theories suggests that Nyong’o declined the role after working on the documentary Warrior Women with Lupita Nyong'o, which concludes that the Agojie was complicit in the Atlantic slave trade. This contradicts their depiction in The Woman King and perhaps didn’t sit well with the Oscar-winning actress.
4. The Woman King’s producer Maria Bello is also credited with the film’s story. She also happens to be a close friend of Viola Davis. The two worked together in the 2013 Denis Villeneuve crime drama Prisoners. They played two mothers whose daughters are abducted by a serial killer. We bet you didn’t know this!
5. The filmmakers recruited professor Leonard Wantchekon, an expert on Dahomey culture from Princeton, as a consultant. Wantchekon was instrumental in carving the nuances and culture of the thriving African kingdom. He also ensures that the film refrains from adopting a stereotypical lens in portraying the tribe like some Hollywood films have in the past. Point of fact, most of the weapons used by the Agojie in the film are identical to locally produced weapons by Dahomey in the 19th century.
6. The film’s title, The Woman King, is an unconventional name for a female-centric film. It is in fact a nod to the belief in the Kingdom of Dahomey, modern-day Benin, about the legend of two kings, a man and a woman, who share equal power and the title of King, instead of Queen for the female ruler. As Davis’ character, Nanisca, is the future Woman King in the story, the title was chosen instead of a name synonymous with the word queen.

Well thats the OTTplay Now You Know episode for today, until the next time its your host Nikhil signing out.

Aaj kya dekhoge OTTplay se poocho

• Written by Ryan Gomez