For Lashana Lynch, playing singer, philanthropist and cultural icon Rita Marley was always going to be daunting. The British actor has Jamaican roots, and the wife of reggae god Bob Marley is a hero of her mother’s. You could say Lynch, Rita Marley and those expectations got together and felt all right in “Bob Marley: One Love.
” The actor created a version of her subject that is living, breathing, feeling ...
and vividly human. When contemplating what the role meant to her and her mother, Lynch says, “It’s going to make me cry. .
.. Playing Rita Marley felt like I was playing my mom at my age — in her 30s — having established her sense of self, and very OK with who she is and where life’s going, to tell the truth to anyone who comes her way, but is also extremely elegant whilst being forthright.
[My mother] was like, ‘You are playing one of the most powerful women in Jamaica. You don’t need to worry. You’ve got it all in you.
You are ready for this.’” “Bob Marley: One Love,” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard”) and starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, focuses on the years 1976 to 1978 in the music legend’s life, starting with the political-unity concert he wants to promote during a very dangerous time in Jamaica, through the recording of and tour for his landmark album “Exodus.” “When I read the script, it was an education in how necessary, how imperative Rita was to Bob’s journey,” Lynch says.
“I’ve played really strong r.
