Nicole Beharie is one of eight actors starring in Amazon Prime’s upcoming anthology series Solos which explores various aspects of the human experience while in isolation. In her episode, Beharie plays Nera, a woman who becomes pregnant after using a futuristic fertility treatment. However, soon after the birth of her son, she notices he’s not like other little boys.
As Nera and her son’s story play out, audiences are left with a number of questions to ponder, which Beharie notes is the point of the series as a whole. Still, she did share one lesson in particular she walked away with from playing the role.
“One of the things that drew me to this script is the importance of people in our lives and how we protect them and love them despite them being a little different than we may ideally want them to be,” she tells ESSENCE.
If you’ve been following Beharie’s career, you know she’s no stranger to tackling difficult characters. Nera, in particular, is reminiscent of Anne, the New Orleans mother Beharie played in last year’s Hulu anthology series Monsterland. Asked how she decompresses after taking on such troubling storylines, the actress says “It might be the roles themselves because my life is not tremendously heavy.”
As for how she’s able to separate the two worlds, she adds, “I feel like I’m asking a question and it’s one thing I love about this series, everyone is in their own world asking questions about how we make it through in isolation. How we make it through in a horrible circumstance when things have taken turns that you couldn’t imagine. Literally, every episode is dealing with that and I have those questions so really I get to work things out in a way and, hopefully, with you guys it’s like an exchange.
Solos debuts on Amazon Prime May 21. Check out our full interview with Nicole Beharie in the video above.