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Kingsley Ben-Adir takes on Bob Marley in the musical biopic “One Love”
With songs of unity and empowerment, Bob Marley brought the music of a tiny Caribbean island to the world. The infectious rhythm of reggae, and his lyrical message of peace during political strife in his native Jamaica, made Bob Marley a legend. His story is now coming to life on film.
“He means so much to so many people,” said Kingsley Ben-Adir, who plays Marley in the upcoming musical biopic, “Bob Marley: One Love,” which opens on Valentine’s Day. “So there was a lot of instructions for me. You know, ‘Remember, he’s this. Remember, he’s not that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.”
Ben-Adir said, as an actor, it was a lot of pressure.
“It’s like, because the messaging was, when he was in the studio he didn’t mess around. And then, there’s a lot of people saying, you know, you have to remember that there were other sides to him. He was very gentle and loving and, like, so popular and funny,” he said. “And I think with an icon like Bob, it can be challenging because his public persona is so strong.”
For Ben-Adir, learning to speak Jamaican Patois was the biggest challenge as he took on the role. He said that he listened to one of Marley’s interviews again and again as he prepared for the role. The actor also prepared at a dance studio in London. Returning to the studio after filming the movie, “it still fills me with fear,” he said.
Ben-Adir did not sing, dance or play the guitar before he transformed into Marley, a man known for all three.
“When Bob moves and when he sings and when he’s on stage, there’s something really profound going on,” he said.
The film – from Paramount Pictures, a division of CBS’ parent company – was produced in partnership with the Marley family, including Bob Marley’s son, musician Ziggy Marley.
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At the Marley homestead, which is now a museum in Kingston, Jamaica, Ziggy Marley said that he originally wanted a Jamaican person to star in the movie.
“We looked wide. Wide and far,” he said. “But what it was with Kingsley, it was just a personal thing where you’re looking at the tapes and, you know, you see one, you say, ‘Eh.’ You see two, you say, ‘Eh.’ And then you see Kingsley, like, ‘Hm.'”
Ben-Adir held Ziggy Marley’s attention, he said, even though the actor is taller and physically different from his father.
“In my mind this is an artistic expression of Bob,” said Ziggy Marley. “So, the height, that never matter. Because yeah, him taller than Bob. But to me, Bob was a giant.”
Bob Marley was five-foot-six and Ben-Adir is six-foot-two. The actor said he dropped about 40 pounds for the screen test.
“And it was too much. I felt sick. I wasn’t sleeping,” said Ben-Adir. “It wasn’t going to be sustainable. There were a lot of conversations with the family where it was like, we’re just trying to find Bob’s essence and his spirit in this film. You can’t copy Bob.”
The movie explores Marley’s spiritual side, Rastafari principles of equality and social justice, and his push for peace in the 1970s after years of political violence in post-colonial Jamaica. It centers on the making of the album, “Exodus,” which TIME Magazine would later anoint “album of the century.”
Ziggy Marley said the film focuses on this period in his father’s life because “it was life-changing for him.” In 1976, armed men attempted to assassinate Bob Marley just days before he was to perform at a concert designed to curb violence among rival groups.
“Somebody trying to kill you changes you. Somebody’s trying to kill you makes you think things. Makes you have emotions that you never had before,” said Ziggy Marley. “This is a time period where he came to a enlightenment, a conclusion about his purpose and his sense of who him is. His life is for him, he doesn’t want it. His life is for people.”
Island Records founder Chris Blackwell is largely credited for taking Bob Marley, and reggae music, beyond Jamaica. He’s portrayed by James Norton in the film.
“Instinctively, from the first time I met him, I just knew there was something there,” Blackwell said of Marley. Now 86, he shared memories of their time working together from his Strawberry Hill Hotel outside of Kingston, where Marley came just after the shooting.
Blackwell got emotional remembering Marley taking the stage in Italy, before more than 100,000 people.
“He was barely touching the ground. He was like floating to it, or mauve that was my image of him, because I just saw him, just going,” Blackwell trailed off, through tears.
“Wow. Oh, boy. It’s a lot, you know, because it’s, it’s not often…super rare that there is somebody who has what he had and to be able to touch the world,” he said.
Marley died at just 36 years old, in 1981, after battling a rare form of melanoma.
“The last thing my father said to me was in the hospital: ‘On your way up, take me up. On your way down and don’t let me down,'” said Ziggy Marley. And, for him, making this film is another sort of Bob Marley record.
“We have a chance to expand his legacy and expand the understanding of him as a human being,” he said. “But, most importantly, to expose the message to more people. The message of love, the message of unity, which the world desperately needs now.”
Frito-Lay is recalling a limited number of 13 oz. bags of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips after being alerted by a consumer contact that the product may contain undeclared milk.
The bags of chips affected by recall were distributed to certain retail stores and e-commerce distributors in Oregon and Washington and were available for sale beginning Nov. 3, 2024.
“Those with an allergy or severe sensitivity to milk run the risk of a serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume the recalled product,” the Food and Drug Administration said in the recall notice posted Thursday.
No allergic reactions related to the recall have been reported, according to the recall. Additionally, no other Lay’s products, flavors, sizes or variety packs are affected.
FDA
The recalled chips include Lay’s Classic Potato Chips, in flexible 13 oz. (368.5 grams) bags with UPC code 28400 31041, a “Guaranteed Fresh” date of 11 Feb 2025, and one of either two manufacturing codes: 6462307xx or 6463307xx.
General guidelines from the FDA advise consumers who have purchased any recalled food to dispose of the product or return it to the retailer for a full refund.
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What is the debt ceiling? Here’s why Trump wants Congress to abolish it before he takes office
Washington — President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk blew up a GOP-backed deal to fund federal agencies into March, raising the pressure on Republican congressional leaders to craft a plan to avert a government shutdown just before the holidays.
In a statement Wednesday, Trump and Vance lambasted the agreement for including provisions favored by Democrats. But the incoming president and vice president also added a new, significant wrinkle to negotiations when they urged Congress to raise or abolish the debt ceiling now, instead of next year.
“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch,” Trump and Vance said in their statement. “If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration? Let’s have this debate now.”
What is the debt ceiling?
Set by Congress, the debt ceiling, or limit, is the maximum amount of money the U.S. Treasury is authorized to borrow to pay debts incurred by the federal government. Lifting the debt ceiling does not authorize new spending, but instead lets the government spend money on obligations that Congress has already been approved.
Failing to address the debt ceiling could lead the U.S. to default on its debt, which would have devastating effects on the economy. The government has never defaulted, and the Treasury typically uses accounting moves, known as “extraordinary measures,” to delay breaching the debt ceiling.
While raising the debt ceiling used to be routine, legislation addressing it has in recent years been used as leverage to force policy concessions and fuel debates over government spending.
Congress last addressed the debt ceiling in June 2023 as part of a legislative package negotiated by President Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. That deal suspended the debt ceiling through Jan., 1, 2025, ensuring any fight over it would take place after the 2024 elections.
The Treasury Department will likely implement extraordinary measures to stave off a default in the new year. It will also announce an “X date,” the estimated point at which the government will no longer be able to pay its obligations. The Economic Policy Innovation Center, a conservative think tank, projected in an analysis released Monday that it’s possible the debt limit will be reached by June 16.
While the Treasury Department’s use of extraordinary measures would give Congress more time to address the debt ceiling, Trump is now urging lawmakers to take action now, before he takes office.
Why does Trump want to raise the debt ceiling?
The president-elect will come into office with a legislative to-do list that includes securing the border and extending provisions of his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was enacted in 2017 and overhauled the tax code. But a fight over the debt ceiling could complicate efforts by the Republican-led House and Senate to focus on those legislative initiatives and pass them quickly.
Trump is urging lawmakers to eliminate the debt ceiling altogether, a position that some prominent Democrats have endorsed in the past.
“Number one, the debt ceiling should be thrown out entirely,” Trump said in a phone interview Thursday with CBS News’ Robert Costa. “Number two, a lot of the different things they thought they’d receive [in a recently proposed spending deal] are now going to be thrown out, 100 percent. And we’ll see what happens. We’ll see whether or not we have a closure during the Biden administration. But if it’s going to take place, it’s going to take place during Biden, not during Trump.”
Trump separately told ABC News that “there won’t be anything approved unless the debt ceiling is done with,” indicating any spending deal to prevent a shutdown must address the debt limit.
“If we don’t get it, then we’re going to have a shutdown, but it’ll be a Biden shutdown, because shutdowns only [injure] the person who’s president,” he told ABC News.
Whether Republicans and Democrats would go along with such a plan, though, is far from clear. GOP lawmakers in both chambers have opposed raising the debt ceiling without spending reforms, and debates over the debt limit often give way to broader fights over the federal budget, which conservatives in Congress have said is bloated and should be reduced. Plus, Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday that shutting down the government would harm families and endanger services Americans rely on.
“Republicans need to stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will hurt hardworking Americans and create instability across the country,” she said. “President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance ordered Republicans to shut down the government and they are threatening to do just that — while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers, and community health centers.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggested Democrats would not go along with a plan pushed by Republicans to raise the debt limit.
“GOP extremists want House Democrats to raise the debt ceiling so that House Republicans can lower the amount of your Social Security check. Hard pass,” the New York Democrat wrote on the social media platform Bluesky.
Jeffries also told reporters “the debt limit issue and discussion is premature at best.”
