Page 274 - FINAL_Guildhall Media Highlights 2019-2020 Coverage Book

directing and writing incredible series, she’s a singer, songwriter, poet and playwright.
She’s also won BAFTA awards for her previous work.

From I May Destroy You

In a Radio One interview, Michaela spoke about her own sexual assault and how
this became the basis for I May Destroy You. “It took me two and a half years all in all
to write it and I didn’t do any other job,” she said. “It’s been quite hard but cathartic
because I’m reflecting on a dark time rather than feeling it is happening to me right
now”.

She added that the series explores different stages of trauma, including denial,
humour and blame, and how this mirrored her own experience of processing what
she went through. “We respond to trauma and triggering situations in many different
ways, it’s not always a pity party,” she said. “Sometimes we’re in deep denial and it’s
not that we’re begging people to believe us, but actually people are pleading for us to
believe them about what’s happened to us”.

Paapa Essiedu – Kwame

Paapa Essiedu plays Arabella’s best friend, Kwame, who also experiences a sexual
assault. If you recognise him, it may be because he’s been in Gangs of London and
Murder on the Orient Express, as well as performing in the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s King Lear and Hamlet. Like Michaela, Paapa also studied at the Guildhall
School of Music and Drama.

Among many things, the series has been praised for its depiction of sexual assault
between two men – Paapa’s character and a man he meets on Grindr. Paapa spoke
to Esquire about his sense of responsibility in showing a sexual assault he’d never
seen on TV. “I thought it was something I’d never seen on television before. It felt like
the crystallization of an experience a lot of people have had, so I felt a sense of