Digital Cover: Sheldon Shepherd

5 hours ago

6 min read

Few artists move between disciplines with the ease and conviction of Sheldon Shepherd. As we sit down to talk about his latest television project, music follows him from a large handheld speaker.

As an actor, dub poet, and musician, Shepherd has been integral to contemporary Jamaican storytelling. And now he’s returning to the screen for Possession, the ambitious new drama filmed between Jamaica and the UK, directed by Storm Saulter and written by Karla Crome.

“I wasn't thinking about the audience. I'm going to be honest with you. I never think about my audience that way,” Shepherd explains about how he sought to bring the role to life.

“I think about doing justice to that living soul that I'm trying to suspend the disbelief in that way. So I have to take care of the living soul that I am going to embody, that idea that I'm going to put forward and make it come alive.”

For Shepherd, London is more than another stop on the press run. It is a city that feels intimately connected to Jamaica's global influence. Shepherd is drawn to the impact, the architecture and how Jamaican culture has impacted London’s “cool factor.”

As a journalist with her own connections to London as well as having Jamaican heritage, it’s hard not to discuss the impact of migration and belonging; themes which leak into Possession.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s character, Claudia, feels heavily removed from her Jamaican identity and the start of the series and goes on a journey to find herself whilst actively performing the duties assigned to her.

She ends up in Jamaica and a tangled web of ancestry, identity and legacies follows her in both the real world and the past that she can’t seem to escape from.

Entering the world of Possession was anything but simple.

Originally introduced to the project under a different title, Shepherd was approached after Saulter expressed interest in him for the role. The script immediately captured his imagination.

“I read the sides, and I was like, "Wow, something that I can sink my teeth into.” You see that you'll have to play multiple characters and you're like, "Wow, this is cool!” and I love period pieces."

Shepherd was all in.

He submitted a self-tape from Jamaica and then waited for a considerable amount of time before deciding to take matters into his own hands.

This is quite common in the industry, budgets change and production/distribution priorities shift.

“Some films come and then they go. I wish this one had stayed,” reflects Shepherd. And then, “It came back, and [I was] like, what?!”

The project was back on and Shepherd knew exactly what he needed to do to secure the role. He told his manager that he would go to London and audition in person. Holding nothing back, he would go on to eventually secure his role.

Shepherd is playing complex characters in Possession.

As we weave through various time periods he travels with us, Cudjoe East is with us in the present. Brash, unrelenting and seeking something deeper which Claudia must grapple with.

The notion of spirituality or Obeah isn’t something to be taken lightly in Jamaican culture, and it runs through Saulter and Crome’s work effectively and intentionally.

Shepherd felt it was important to let audiences come to their own decisions about what they were seeing, the things he portrayed on the screen, but he also wanted to build identity and roots in his characters.

“I try to see Matthew as a simple guy who wants to have a wife, a good job, a family, an inheritance. He wants to play it safe. And then when he realises that he's a Black man in this kind of world, the odds are stacked against him, his back is against the wall. As Marcus Garvey said, “you won't know yourself until your back is against the wall.”

Then Cudjoe East. You watch those Westerns and you see that tumbleweed blowing across. He’s got that kind of energy because he's lost, but he knows that there's no there's no finding for that kind of being lost where he is. You can't find him because he has seen everything. You can't impress him, you know.”

The duality of these two characters, their motivations and end goals are something that serve to drive the plot of Possession.

And Shepherd felt well held and supported alongside his cast mates, Bel Powley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Johnny Lee Miller.

“I learned from every single one of these actors. Gugu has such grace in how she approaches things. She approaches things with a learned vibration, you know what I mean, and I really love to see that,” Shepherd had scenes with all of the aforementioned cast and from each of them he took something away.

With Lee Miller it was the strong affinity to translate content from real-life to screen seamlessly. With Bel Powley it was the power to make Shepherd forget he was in a scene. He had to remind himself, “Sheldon, remember, you're still here. You're acting.”

Something like that had never really happened to him before “in that way,” In that moment, there was no cameraman, no microphone, just a woman standing with a baby in a stairwell.

Upon the conversation about WHMU (Wigs, Hair and Make-Up), extreme intentionality went into hiring Morris Roots, an award-winning hairstylist specialising in locs and Black natural hair.

Shepherd practices the Rastafari culture and cutting his locs was never going to happen. But in playing dual characters, he moves between dreadlocks and a short afro wig.

“Sometimes you see the wigs in movies, it looks like a wig. You know what I mean? This Bredrin, him so meticulous, him so detailed with his work, man. Bredrin is a legend, man.”

Roots made sure Shepherd’s locs were laid down neatly and in a way that didn’t make his wig overly bulky, it was something I noticed when watching the series, it’s something I noticed quite frequently when it comes to Black actors and talent across stage and screen.

Intentionality is something Shepherd continues to hammer home throughout our time together.

The filming of the series across both the United Kingdom and Jamaica hammers home the ever steady growth of the Caribbean film industry. Shepherd believes that we’re finally starting to see a shift in visibility of Jamaican narratives on screen created by people outside of the diaspora to an ownership of these stories.

Ownership of these stories means giving jobs to those across the Caribbean, training up new talent and ensuring that those with unique stories have the opportunity to be heard, both in front and behind the camera.

“So we know that we need to home grow our talent, home grow our production companies, take our time, build it, and eventually, the right time, the right place, with the right energy, we will attract a Sky. We will attract a Paramount. Right now, to be honest, we are in that space.

We are in the space now where people are saying Jamaica is serious about film now. Look at what they're making. Look at what their Directors are directing. Look at what their Actors are doing. Look at their Production crew. Look at what everyone is doing right now in Jamaica.”

Shepherd is passionate to a fault about just how much art sparks change in people, institutions and how this project has the desire to champion fruitful conversations around reclamation of land, heritage and reparations.

“Sometimes people think that they need to see the big thing or get the big thing, but a simple conversation will spark that flame. That little fire that will grow into a bushfire, you know rebellion, revolution, that kind of vibration.”

While he acknowledges that the series is fictional, he hopes it opens space for broader conversations about responsibility, justice and healing. Above all, he believes that powerful storytelling can inspire reflection.

He sees it as, “repairing damages done,” acknowledging the fact that "when you make good to great art, it tends to allow for behavioural change," he reflects.

And that’s what Shepherd has continued to do, push the boundaries of his artistic practice and in turn release a new musical project called, Give Thanks.

The eleven track album is something I don’t realise we’ve been privy to since our first meeting. It’s played as he walks in the early morning Sky junket and loops as we shoot our Digital Cover on the premises of Jumbi Peckham.

It’s grounded and meditative. It speaks to who Shepherd is as an individual, the music speaks to him on a spiritual level.

The album blends spoken-word, dub poetry and reggae; it works as a suitable companion piece to Possession, rooted in identity, culture and belonging. Shepherd continues to honour the voices who came before him, whilst making space for his own firm voice.

Possession is available to watch now via Sky and Now TV.

Sheldon Shepherd’s debut album ‘Give Thanks’ is also available to stream here.

Credits:

Location: JUMBI Peckham

Photographer: Karis Beaumont

Grooming: Becca Mc

Stylist: Jermaine Robinson

Producer: Sabrina Fearon-Melville

With additional thanks to Sky Studios