Amandla Stenberg talks 'Darkest Minds,' coming out and a 'heady' new Holocaust film

SAN DIEGO – To unleash her psychic superpowers in the new sci-fi film "The Darkest Minds," Amandla Stenberg embraced a left-field choice of inspiration: Ben Stiller’s facial expressions in "Zoolander."

The 19-year-old actress did her own take on Stiller's "Blue Steel" gaze as she filmed scenes where her Ruby Daly has to get in the minds of government bad guys. "I didn't want to overdramatize the look she gives when she's using her power," she says. "I kind of tried for a look of what it feels like when you focus really hard on something."

In recent years, young-adult book adaptations have been a focus of Stenberg's burgeoning Hollywood career. She had her breakthrough in 2012's "The Hunger Games," was the female lead of the 2017 romance "Everything, Everything," and in "Darkest Minds" (in theaters Friday), adapted from the Alexandra Bracken novel, her character is at the heart of a rebellion after a plague wipes out most of America's youth. The teens who survive wind up with extraordinary abilities that get them sent to internment camps, but Ruby escapes and finds other similarly powered runaways to fight back against adult antagonists.

With a pair of movies heading to Toronto Film Festival in September – the World War II Holocaust drama “Where Hands Touch” (out Sept. 21) and an adaptation of the Black Lives Matter-inspired YA book "The Hate U Give" (Oct. 19) – Stenberg talks to USA TODAY about her upcoming slate and coming out as gay in June.

Question: Because you're still a teen yourself, do you see your young fans more as peers?
Amandla Stenberg: I don't think I'm that removed from them. We have very similar perspective. Having that peer relationship leads to my (online) followers feeling like they have the space to be critical of me and engage in conversation with me. Sometimes it hurts, but I also really love it because it holds me accountable. It makes me feel like I'm a part of a community.

Question: What's the major appeal of YA stories for you?

Stenberg: I really relate to it and empathize with it and it touches me. And I also just love the way that young adult is uncontrived and earnest and deals with themes that we all deal with throughout our entire lives. I don't think young adult is just for young adults. It gets to the crux of what being a person is about.

Q: Was it difficult to be so public about your sexuality?

Stenberg: I felt proud. Coming out is a little strange because it forces people to think of you in a sexual context, so in that way, it felt a little bizarre. But I didn't feel any different from coming out as gay (than I did) standing in my truth as a black person. It's another area of self that influences who I am and how I navigate the world.

Q: What led you to "The Hate U Give"?

Stenberg: I fell in love with the book. I had never connected so hard to a character just because I've had very similar life experiences in terms of code-switching between different environments and finding out who her true self is in the midst of that.

Q: How heady was it to do a Holocaust movie?

Stenberg: It was heady and heavy. It's about a biracial child – the daughter of a German woman and a French Senegalese soldier sent to Germany during World War I – and she comes of age around the time the Holocaust happens and suffers the consequences of someone who is also marginalized, next to the Jewish experience. It's complicated, it's very nuanced, it's somewhat controversial, but I think it's really important. I hope to come out (of every film) a changed person, learning something new by putting myself in someone else's shoes for a certain amount of time.

Q: What did you learn about yourself doing "Darkest Minds"?

Stenberg: When we shot it, it was still fresh to us that Donald Trump was president and it made me think a lot about the responsibility I have in using my voice to fight against elitists and violent adults.

WSOC