Vivian Oparah on Then You Run and ‘chewing up’ the romcom in Rye Lane (2024)

Every so often a film comes along that redefines a style, a genre, a place. It happened this March when, seemingly out of nowhere, Rye Lane landed and was rapturously embraced by audiences and critics (one said its arrival felt “like a miracle”).

Director Raine Allen-Miller’s debut was praised for redefining the rom-com – “chewing it up” according to its star Vivian Oparah – and for being a love letter to a side of London very rarely seen on the big screen. It also marked the arrival of the leads, David Jonsson, and particularly Oparah, who was immediately marked out as a future star.

Things are already happening. Rye Lane, she says, was the start of a new chapter for her. “It has opened a lot of doors. There have been a lot of incredible opportunities off the back of it.”

Oparah plays the brilliant, chaotic, life-affirming Yas, who meets Jonsson’s Dom at the opening of his friend’s art exhibition. Both are dealing with breakups, and they spend the day walking through Peckham and Brixton talking about life, love and everything in between (it’s a joy for SE-dwellers, with plenty of location-spotting opportunities, and some people-spotting – in a later gallery scene, there’s a very niche, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from the artistic director of Frieze London, Eva Langret).

They filmed it shortly after lockdown and it came along at just the right time for the actor. “Yas was cathartic to play at a time of being so insular and introverted because of the pandemic. Nothing was off limits. We just got to meander through the world wide-eyed.”

Vivian Oparah on Then You Run and ‘chewing up’ the romcom in Rye Lane (1)

David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah in Rye Lane

Chris Harris

Audiences lapped it up. “When people talk to me about that film, they’re always full of so much love and personal pride, and it just feels so crazy to have made something that has made people feel like this about their city and themselves if they’re black, you know?”

It was when the film opened at Sundance in January that they began to think it may be a hit. In a restaurant at the festival, Oparah remembers coming out of the toilet to find a woman talking animatedly to Jonsson. “She was saying, ‘Your film has revitalised the rom-com genre.’… People were coming up to us saying, ‘Your film is incredible’. We were in this wintry landscape and it didn’t feel real. I expected to wake up at any moment.”

If Rye Lane shakes up the rom-com it also nods to the genre’s past – particularly Richard Curtis films (except the bit where they’re set in the stratospherically expensive parts of west London). In a glorious passing of the baton, Colin Firth appears in one scene, working on a burrito stall in Brixton Market named Love Guac’tually.

“He was such a G to just be like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it for a burrito.’ That was his exact response…” Oparah says. “We knew the comparisons were going to happen, and we wanted to own it… What a way to own it!”

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More rom-com scripts have landed since. “People see you in a role and go, ‘Let’s get her to do that’, which is lovely but... you want to surprise and learn. Just be chameleonic.”

Vivian Oparah on Then You Run and ‘chewing up’ the romcom in Rye Lane (6)

Oparah as Stink in Then You Run

Her latest role in Then You Run is indeed very different, though like Rye Lane it was a while in the making; she first auditioned for it before the pandemic. The show is one of Sky’s big drama releases of the summer and Oparah plays one of four teenage friends on a trip to Rotterdam, forced to go on the run when they get on the wrong side of a group of vicious drug dealers. There are car chases and shoot-outs… it’s a world away from the gentle ramble through Rye Lane.

“The writing was incredible, it felt really fresh,” she says. “I loved the character of Stink.” Ah yes, that character name. It’s… strong, I suggest. “You quickly learn why that’s her name. She’s the type of person where, whenever she enters a room, you definitely feel her there. You may not be able to see her but the energy she gives off in a room is quite disruptive; she kicks up a stink.

“But weirdly in the past couple of years, while we’ve been waiting for the show to come out, ‘stink’ has become a term of endearment online amongst my generation; people lovingly call people ‘stink’. I honestly think that duality relates to this character.”

To play this punchy, forthright woman Oparah “tapped into the hedonism of my teens… that’s what you want as an actor. You find a corner of yourself and blow it up to the biggest degree.”

This action was a novelty too. “The John Wick-ness of it all was entirely new,” she laughs. “That was entirely new and entirely exciting. Seeing how they blew up a car, and the crazy, crazy fight sequences and choreography behind them was so intricate and insane.” After initial qualms she loved working with the “heavy artillery”.

Then You Run also has a surprise cameo, in the form of GoldenEye, Taken and X-Men star Famke Janssen. “She’s a legend… she was a girl crush of my whole friend group for a really long time so it was very weird actually. When we found out she was going to be on the show we were so excited.”

Oparah, who is of Nigerian heritage, grew up in Tottenham the youngest of four siblings. She was a shy child who loved reading and writing and doesn’t know what drove her to play the Wicked Witch in a school production of Snow White. Despite a standing ovation she thought “I’m not doing that again.” She adds, “It felt like a weird side quest I did as a kid, then I stopped. I did GCSE drama then I stopped.”

She wasn’t happy at school and wouldn’t turn up, instead working on her own to get high grades. “I wasn’t skiving for fun, I love learning. There was something about the environment of school that just didn’t chime with me. I still didn’t know where I fit in the world. So I’d take myself away and educate myself creatively and academically, and hope that would help me figure it out.”

Oparah almost went down a very different path, after winning a place to study neuroscience at UCL. “At heart I’m an academic,” she says. “I have a huge interest in people, which makes sense as an actor. I had a huge interest in biology and uncovering the mind… It led me to neuroscience.”

But suddenly the future stretched out ahead of her and she wasn’t keen on what she saw. “I was like, ‘It’s weird that at this juncture I’m choosing to do what everyone else is doing, because you’ve been running from this conveyor belt you feel these people are on’. So I got off.”

Vivian Oparah on Then You Run and ‘chewing up’ the romcom in Rye Lane (7)

Vivian Oparah

Matt Writtle, location: Princes Dock, Liverpool Waters, Liverpool

She took a gap year and went on a National Youth Theatre course before going on two open auditions on the same day – she didn’t get the first one, for Top Boy, but landed a role in the Doctor Who spin-off Class.

Subsequent roles included the plays An Octoroon by Brandon Jacobs Jenkins and an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, as well as the David Swimmer comedy Intelligence and a small role in Michaela Coel’s hugely acclaimed BBC drama I May Destroy You.

“One thing I took away was watching how much of a powerhouse she is. She comes onto set, is kind to everyone, speaks to everyone; she’s wearing so many hats but you’d never know because of how calm and lovely she is. Just watching someone be a leader like that was incredible. And to be part of a project that has meant so much to so many people, including myself, has just felt really special.”

Oparah produces and performs music too, previously as Bunny and now as Vivian Forever – in a style she calls electronic experimental.

“I felt with acting it was fantastic, but I didn’t know what to do with these ideas I had. So I started making music. All of my friends are musicians so it was easy to slot into that world. The dream is to be in my David Lynch era where I’m writing and scoring and acting in things – I don’t know about directing yet!” She currently has a residency at Somerset House – a “sound-art type thing”.

She’s drawn to “world builders” and dreams of a role that would teach her a skill. She has been watching a lot of Hot Ones, the YouTube show in which actors are interviewed while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings. “I remember Margot Robbie talking about how she learned how to pick pocket and Jennifer Lawrence talking about learning to pick locks. I’m not interested in a life of crime” – she laughs – “however I am interested in acquiring a very specific skill set for a role. Getting in my Daniel Day Lewis and doing that, you know like how for Phantom Thread he learned how to make a Balenciaga dress… I really want to get into the world of something and live out these lives that I’ll never get to live.”

It seems like such offers may start flooding in, but one question remains, could there be a return to Rye Lane? “David and I said if there’s ever a sequel to Rye Lane, they should just keep changing the genre. So the next version picks up where we left off, but becomes a horror film. That’s how they’ll rope us back in to doing it.” She has another thought, “Or we’ll do it in 50 years’ time after we’ve both had super incredible careers; we can come back as old people and do it then.”

Then You Run airs on Sky Max from July 7

Vivian Oparah on Then You Run and  ‘chewing up’ the romcom in Rye Lane (2024)
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