A few days before the theatrical release of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” — the franchise’s final film entry — Shaunette Renée Wilson was in the lobby of a hotel in Williamsburg reflecting on her journey with the film. “I don’t think I’ve really been able to cognitively adjust yet to what this film is and how much it means to a lot of people,” Wilson says.
Indiana Jones might be hanging up his hat, but Wilson is just getting started.
Most recently, the film’s press tour took her to a photo shoot at a quiet Brooklyn playground. Back at the hotel, her temporary home, the actress has since changed out of the editorial look, a theatrical cutout dress by Nigerian-British designer Mowalola. The dress was originally a red carpet option for the film’s premiere; Wilson ended up wearing a red sequined Rodarte halter dress and cape. And for the film’s splashy debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May, she wore a beaded vintage Armani gown for the red carpet and Chopard jewelry.
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“I had a security detail follow me everywhere, which was kind of intense, but also kind of felt like a very VIP situation,” says Wilson, who’s styled by Solange Franklin. The Chopard jewels accompanied Wilson to the Cannes party, where she was honored with Variety’s breakthrough artist award. She wore a custom hooded Harbison look for the occasion. “I’m trying to delve more into fashion and to be more of a ‘look queen,’ as they say. So I think [Cannes] was a good stage for that.”
Wilson was presented the breakthrough award by fellow MFA Yale School of Drama grad Jeremy O. Harris. The pair only overlapped for one year (Wilson graduated in 2016), but the program’s alumni tend to cross paths sooner than later.
“What I loved about Yale is that it was very interdisciplinary,” says Wilson, who had a supporting role in “Black Panther,” which notably starred several Yalies. “You can literally build your own theater company with the people you go to school with.”
Wilson, who was born in Guyana and moved to New York with her family when she was two years old, encountered the Indiana Jones franchise by way of her dad and brother.
“It was a nice introduction to American culture,” she says. “The interesting thing about ‘Indiana Jones’ is that it has that international appeal, because it literally goes all over the world and encounters so many different people. It’s also something in our zeitgeist; everyone knows what it is. Telling my family that I’m in ‘Indiana Jones,’ it’s an immediate recognition,” she adds. “They immediately are like, ‘oh, I know what that is,’ and that’s a big deal.”
Wilson wasn’t immediately sold on the project when the audition came through, although she recognized it as a big opportunity.
“I read [the script] and initially had some concerns with my character and the way she was portrayed, or the way she exited the film. I was like, ‘I don’t think this is something I would want to inhabit and embody, and I find this problematic,’” says Wilson, who was encouraged to bring up her concerns when talking with director James Mangold. “He was really receptive and said it was something that he was gonna change and work on.” Shortly after, Wilson’s team called her and started playing the Indiana Jones theme song; she had the part.
Although the film’s final edit meant that parts of her character arc — a CIA agent searching for Indiana Jones in the late ’60s — ended up getting cut from the film, Wilson is proud of the bigger picture.
“It’s quite a fun ride. It is a thrilling ride,” she says. “It is a good sendoff for this character [Indiana Jones] that’s been around for decades. And there was also a moment of pride to be a part of that in history, and seeing the only Black woman to be in this franchise on the screen is still pretty momentous to me.”
Wilson will next be seen in the Hulu series “Washington Black,” produced by Sterling K. Brown. The actress describes the project, based on the acclaimed novel by Esi Edugyan, as “probably the most physically, emotionally and mentally demanding part I’ve ever played.”
“But I think because of that, I want to do something with levity, lighter, comedy,” she says, adding that she’s working on writing a pilot with a friend that reflects “a little bit more about me, my queerness and queer community, but not associating any of that with a lot of trauma.”
The industrywide strikes mean that Wilson will likely have more time than usual to dedicate to developing her own projects this summer.
“I just can’t sit around and wait for someone to hand me a job and hand me the opportunity,” she says. “I think we’re getting to a point where we start to have to create our own way forward.”