Arsema Thomas Covers Rollacoaster Magazine's Autumn/Winter 2024 Issue

“[Institutions are] already educating us to be complacent actors who will do any job they are ‘lucky’ enough to get. It’s the moment that made it all click and made me feel like I was the problem: that I was ugly, unworthy. I realised everything would be for nothing if I entered the industry and became a part of that cycle. Every room I step into now, I make sure that I’m loud. There’s this narrative of, ‘When you get bigger or into a space of power, then you can create change.’ But if that were true, it would have happened already…there are already many Black people in power. However long or short my career is, I will be true to myself every step of the way—and the people that believe in that will find me. That is the place I will be happiest in.”

Breaking onto our screens as Lady Agatha Danbury of  Queen Charlotte, our cover star Arsema Thomas now has the world at her feet—and for the 30-year-old actor, she’s set on blazing a new trail. As her latest project, She Taught Love, releases on Hulu, she chats with Francesca Amewudah-Rivers on inciting change within the acting industry, discovering her voice and what her future will hold.

Photography by  Ben Duggan
Styling by Karolina Fre
Interview by Francesca Amewudah-Rivers
Words by Ella West
Editorial Director Charlotte Morton
Editor-in-Chief Ella West
Art Director Bethany Griffiths
Production Director Lola Randall
Hair by Chad Andre
Make-up by Kymberli William