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Jasmine Jobson is no stranger to playing strong, complex women, but her latest role might just be her most challenging yet. Jasmine stars as the iconic British-Somali boxer Ramla Ali in In The Shadows, a biographical drama directed by Anthony Wonke.
The film follows Ramla's extraordinary journey from arriving in London as a refugee to secretly pursuing boxing against her family's wishes, before going on to become a champion, making history as the first boxer to represent Somalia at the Olympics.
While In The Shadows is undoubtedly a sports film, it's a deeply moving true story about family, identity, faith, and the difficult balance between honouring where you come from and carving out your own path.
We sat down with Jasmine, who opened up about the emotional responsibility of bringing Ramla's story to life, the personal experiences she drew on to portray her relationships, and the gruelling boxing training that pushed her further than she'd expected. Here's what she had to say.
What was it about the script that really stood out to you and made you want to take the role?
Do you know what, it wasn't just one thing. It was Ramla and her family's story as a whole. I was crying within the first 10 minutes of reading the script.
I'd met Ramla a couple of times at some events, but we hadn't actually had any in-depth conversations about our own personal lives or anything. So when this script landed in my lap, I completely broke down, and I was like, "This is a story that I have to tell. I have to tell this story." And I'm very honoured that Ramla and Richard chose me to share this story.
Ramla was quite involved in the production, and you spent a lot of time with her. What did you learn about her that we don't necessarily see in the script?
She is such a lovely human being. She is an absolute sweetheart. She's very, very caring, very nurturing. But at the same time, she can also be quite shy. She's like an onion, do you know what I mean? We're all onions. There are so many layers to us that make us who we are.
And honestly, it was such a blessing having her and Richard (Moore, Ramla’s husband) there with me, because they were there pretty much 24/7. Anytime I felt unsure or uneasy, I was always able to go to Ramla and Richard and ask them, "Is this how you would want it to be? Is this how it was for you? Am I doing it right?" I learned very, very quickly to trust my own instincts. Ramla didn't come and tell me how it was and, "Oh, you need to be like this, and I need you to do it like this." She just trusted me to do what I'm doing. But I felt really, really safe that she allowed me to use my own creative input and my own initiative, essentially. And yeah, we're actually pretty similar!
Such a massive part of the story is Ramla's relationships with her mum, her brother, and her partner. What did you bring from your own experiences to make those relationships feel so real?
Well, naturally, I come from a very strict family anyway – I always had curfews, and I got grounded a lot and things like that. It reminded me a lot of myself when I was in my troubled teen era, getting told off a lot. I love Hodan (Yusuf). Hodan is absolutely amazing; she played mum absolutely amazingly. And she's such a lovely, caring woman as well. And she brought a lot to her role. Personally, for me, I had a lot of fun.
The confrontation scenes between Ramla and her mother are some of the most emotional moments in the film. How did you approach portraying that tension between love and family expectations?
I honestly couldn't say that I had to tap into anything; it was so natural. And I think that Ramla, Richard, and the whole team have done so well with the casting, because we all mesh together so naturally that there was no effort. It was effortless.
I honestly haven't worked on a production like this where I felt so connected to the cast without knowing them for as long as you would have thought that we would have known each other. I think it's a testament to the actors and who they are, and their personalities and their traits. We all connected so, so well.
I feel like maybe it also helped with our trip to Kenya, when we shot a few scenes there, because we were all basically living at this resort together. Some wouldn't be working and some would, and we would all wrap and then come and join each other for dinner and things like that. We really did bond like a family. We went to restaurants and things like that in the UK – I feel like that's down to everybody making sure that we were all together. So it allowed us time to actually bond and create a foundation.
Ramla's Somali heritage and her identity as a Muslim woman are a huge part of her story. How important was it to represent those parts of her identity authentically, rather than approaching it as a typical underdog story?
Very, very, very important. I grew up in Edgware Road, a predominantly Muslim area. A lot of my friends that I grew up with were Bengali, Somali, Kurdish, Iraqi, Iranian, and being that I'm Jamaican, I'm also of African descent. So it was very, very important to make sure that it was done the right way.
I definitely tapped into what I saw; I would say, like a little fly on the wall, essentially, from what I saw some of my friends go through and their experiences when we were younger.
There's a particularly emotional moment where Ramla tells her family that she just wants them to be proud of her. What did that line mean to you?
That line really, really stuck with me, because I feel like that's all you want from your family. You just want them to be proud of you for who you really are. That's all Ramla wanted, really. And she got that. It took a lot of fighting, but she got there in the end, and she's got the man that she loves, and he loves her dearly. Really and truly, that's all you want: for your baby to be happy and to be successful in life and to be healthy.
In The Shadows is a sports biopic, so let's talk about the boxing scenes. How was it getting into the mindset of an athlete and preparing for those fight sequences?
That was so difficult, I can’t lie to you. I've had my little street fighting days in my early teenage years, but when it comes down to boxing, it's completely different. It's very, very disciplined. It's a completely different sport, and I had to go from an amateur to a champion within two weeks!
I literally had two weeks to, I would say, train, essentially, before we actually started filming, and I had to learn these fight sequences. And it was very, very difficult. I'd be crazy if I were to say that, "Oh, it would have been a breeze."
But I'm really, really proud of myself, to be totally honest with you, because I honestly thought, "Oh, I don't know if I could do this." Like, the acting, that's a breeze. I could do that in my sleep, but the boxing was very, very hard.
But if you put your head down, you're capable of anything. If anything, this job has shown me that if I stick my mind to it, I can do anything.
Did Ramla give you any specific pointers on how to position yourself or replicate her movements in the ring?
Yeah. Ramla was there all the time. Oh my God, she was amazing!
Even with her signature movements as well, she's got a little shimmy that she does just before she starts fighting, as the bell goes. That little shimmy that she does, and her signature one finger that goes up when she's won. It was amazing having her there because I was able to keep it authentic, and that is the most important thing.
We rarely get to see biopics about Black women, let alone Muslim women who are athletes. What do you think audiences are going to find most surprising about Ramla's journey?
I would say that they're going to see a woman who is very, very determined in life and has multiple points to prove, and she doesn't take no for an answer. I just want them to be proud of her.
Us actors, we have the privilege of being able to tell stories, and in most cases, in my experience, my characters have been fiction. So to be able to tell a story that is about a real person, it's been such a beautiful journey, and I'm so glad that Ramla’s been rocking with me all the way through it.
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