Rebecca Hall 'lacked the confidence' to make Passing

Rebecca Hall “didn’t have the confidence” to make ‘Passing’ for “a long time”.

The 39-year-old actress has made her directorial debut with the black-and-white drama film – which explores the practice of black people who “passed” as white in the 1920s – and Rebecca admits she faced a struggle to get the project off the ground.

She explained: “I faced problems both within the industry – I came up against blocks trying to get it made – but I also came up against personal blocks.

“[The screenplay] sat in a drawer for quite a long time because I just didn’t have the confidence. I felt like it was too ambitious … and I just didn’t believe anyone would let me make it.”

Rebecca was also determined to shoot the movie – which is based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Nella Larsen – in black and white.

She told Sky News: “In a very soundbitey kind of way, it just felt like the best way to make a movie about colourism was to take all the colour out of it.

“But I think more specifically what I mean by that is, I think sometimes to understand truths about humanity, we need poetry. We don’t necessarily need complete reality, sometimes the abstraction helps.

“I think black and white takes these concepts and sort of highlights that we’re so busy putting everyone into these categories, when no one can be reduced to a single thing.

“[You] can’t be reduced to just ‘woman’ or, you know, ‘white’, or whatever it is … the great irony about black and white film is it’s not black and white, it’s grey. And this is existing in the grey areas, actually.”