Back to Blog
Michaela coel misfits6/29/2023 “If my skate teacher saw you he’d be like, ‘Where’s the helmet?’ ” she says. With guards on my wrists and elbows and kneepads strapped over my baggy jeans, I look like an overgrown teenage boy. The pair I’ve chosen have small wheels-the better to keep me grounded, I think. We’re in the parking lot of Decathlon, a sprawling French sports-supply store where she’s persuaded me to buy my first ’blades. “The balance is tough, but the enjoyment is max,” she says, grinning. She shows me her skates-white with gigantic lilac wheels-and tells me that big wheels equal great speed. Looking every inch the athlete, Coel shows up early for our meet, slender but strong in black running shorts and a sports bra, a purple baseball hat thrown over her closely cropped ’fro. It was a daredevil stunt suited more to an action movie than a Vogue cover shoot. The day before, in Accra’s historic Jamestown, I’d witnessed Coel flying through traffic on her skates, her polka-dot Burberry cape flapping wildly behind her, photographer Malick Bodian and his crew in hot pursuit. “Totally down for that, sounds like fun!!!” I respond via WhatsApp, adding one too many exclamation points out of apprehension. So I’m not all that surprised when the 35-year-old actor-writer-director suggests meeting for a Rollerblading session on a Sunday morning in Accra, Ghana’s capital city. Michaela Coel doesn’t like to sit still she’s a self-described mover, the type to run a half-marathon in the middle of the night for fun.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |