Rebecca Hall on “Passing” and Her Family’s Racial Secrets

REBECCA HALL, WRITER AND DIRECTOR, “PASSING”: Well, the book was written in 1929. And, like you said, it telegraphs that it’s telling the story of this one woman who’s hiding her racial identity. But, in many ways, what makes it incredibly timeless and president for now is that it’s — it actually becomes about her effect on the other woman who’s not hiding her racial identity, but is in many ways hiding many other things about herself. So, in a sense, it becomes about how race intersects with gender and sexuality and class and any other thing that you can think of, honestly.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So — sorry. I interrupted, but I’m going to play — I want to play a clip.

HALL: Please.

AMANPOUR: And the two women are called Irene and Clare. And here they are in this scene of your film reconnecting after many, many years of not seeing or knowing how each other were, what they were doing. So let’s just play this clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEGGA: Pardon me. I don’t mean to stare, but I think I know you.

THOMPSON: I’m afraid you’re mistaken.

NEGGA: No, of course, I know you, Reeny. You look just the same. Tell me, do they still call you Reeny?

THOMPSON: Yes. But no one’s called me that for a long time.

NEGGA: Don’t you know me? Not really, Reeny?

THOMPSON: I’m afraid I can’t seem to place.

(LAUGHTER)

THOMPSON: Clare?

NEGGA: That’s right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, Clare and Irene. And it is. I mean, it’s intriguing. Tell us a little bit in more full detail what passing is.

HALL: Well, passing refers specifically to — well, not specifically, but it’s more commonly — became common parlance during the Jim Crow era, when the one-drop rule, et cetera, et cetera, became as it was, and people who were could — it doesn’t necessarily refer to white-passing specifically, but African-Americans who were capable of crossing the color line and could be under the guise of being Spanish or even sometimes indigenous. But passing was the colloquial term used for those people who crossed the color line.