In between Letitia Wright’s work in numerous Marvel movies, the actress took on the true but tragic story of the Gibbons twins, known best as the 2022 movie release’s title: The Silent Twins. The film illustrates the life of the actual British identical twins who vowed to only communicate to each other and no one else, leading to a life down a path of destruction and isolation. Wright spoke to CinemaBlend about her preparation for the role.
In our interview with Leititia Wright, the actress spoke to the different pressures of playing an actual living person in contrast to starring in blockbuster Marvel films. It was important to her to be sensitive and bring justice to June Gibbons early life. One piece of this was reading June’s long lost book The Pepsi-Cola Addict, to which there are only reportedly a few copies left in the world. In Wright’s words:
Our director Agnieszka did some deep, deep dive into finding copies of it. Thankfully, Marjorie Wallace also had a copy of it, so I was able to not get an original, but to get a scan of it. Hopefully, if the movie continues to just speak to audiences it will allow for a re-publication of it. And I would definitely try to buy that ASAP.
Marjorie Wallace is the author of 1986 The Silent Twins book, which the movie is based upon. Although The Pepsi-Cola Addict, which is an important part within the film and quoted, is no longer in print, Letitia Wright was able to get her hands on a copy of the book to prepare to play June Gibbons. Wright also shared her hopes for the novel to become more widely available to readers.
The book itself is a work of fiction that was self published by June Gibbons in 1982. It’s about a character named Preston who is literally addicted to Pepsi, to the point where his thoughts and fantasies begin to cling to the carbonated drink. Preston gets dumped over the habit and robs a convenience store due to his mesmerization of Pepsi.
Letitia Wright plays June to Tamara Lawrence’s Jennifer Gibbons, who tells a unique story with The Silent Twins. The women were born in 1963 to Caribbean immigrants before going to school in Wales and dealing with a string of issues with the school system for refusing to communicate outside their own words to each other.
As the twins came of age, they became gifted creatives in their self-imposed isolation, each of them keeping stories, poems and novels along with making and playing with dolls. Agnieszka Smoczynska’s movie brings The Silent Twins to life, often with some unique and surreal imagery to show their more cerebral life. Among this year’s many book-to-movie adaptations, The Silent Twins is certainly one of the most visionary and unique.
Following The Silent Twins, Letitia Wright will return to as Shuri to cope with T’Challa’s death in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Ahead of the movie’s release on November 11, check out the epic Wakanda Forever trailer.
