British model/actress Jodie Turner-Smith has defied the odds to land her biggest role in the film industry as the lead in Queen & Slim.

“I’ve always been ‘other’ in all the spaces that I’ve been in. Even when I first moved to America, just the idea that I was a dark-skinned black girl from England with an accent. It’s one thing to be a black girl, but it’s another to be a dark black girl. I was chastised for that. I needed to be more American to other people, and because I wasn’t American, that was the thing that was making me not good enough. I was so triggered that after two of my three auditions, I went into the car and just cried,” she told media company Face2Face Africa.

The 33-year-old was born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, England to Jamaican parents. She settled in the United States after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008, and currently lives in Los Angeles.

The film, which debuted on November 27 in the US, portrays the life an attorney who has spent her life defending black men and women facing the death penalty. Turner-Smith who plays Queen, and Slim (played by Daniel Kaluuya) kill a police officer after he pulls them over, while they are on their way home from a date. Instead of turning themselves in, they go on the run.

Written by Lena Waithe and directed by Melina Matsoukas, Queen & Slim has accumulated US$22.3 million so far at the box office.

Turner-Smith began her acting career in 2013. Since then, she has appeared in HBO’s True Blood, and TNT’s The Last Ship. She caught the attention of critics last year for her role in the adaption of the George R R Martin novella Nightflyers.

However, it is her latest role that has been the high point of her career so far.

“The fact that I was cast in a show to play a female lead and I’m the dark-skinned black woman with short hair, it’s so incredible. The part was a confidence boost as well. It just gave me a little bit of wind beneath my wings to really go and make this my own,” she said.