This high school drama was a great example of asexual representation
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY AMAZON PRIME
It’s been five years since Selah And The Spades premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of warring high school cliques through the eyes of Paloma, the protege of hyper-intelligent senior Selah. One of the few examples of asexual representation on screen, this film is underrated gem.
Join us as we see what the cast have been up to in the five years since the film came out!
Lovie Simone (Selah Summers)
When this film premiered, its titular character, Selah, instantly struck a chord with the asexual community. In a conversation with Paloma, Selah shares that she’s never had the urge to kiss someone. In the director’s own words: “I think Selah is asexual, but she doesn’t have the words for it, which happens.”
Since playing Selah, Lovie Simone has gone on to play Tabby, a member of the coven in the gloriously queer The Craft: Legacy. She has also played Mary Simms in Manhunt, a miniseries dramatising Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
Celeste O’Connor (Paloma Davis)
New girl Paloma was soon taken under Selah’s wing. Her intelligence and growing confidence made her an excellent candidate to take over Selah’s clique, the Spades, when the latter graduated.
Non-binary actor Celeste O’Connor followed Selah And The Spades with some big blockbusters. They played teenage waitress turned ghost hunter Lucky Domingo in both the recent additions to the Ghostbusters franchise and entered the Marvel universe as Mattie Franklin in Madame Web.
Outside of acting, Celeste currently goes to John Hopkins University to major in public health and pre-medicine. They are interested in using their degree to tackle social issues that worsen our health, such as food and housing insecurities.
Jharrel Jerome (Maxxie Ayoade)
Selah’s second-in-command, Maxxie, was not always the most competent but was ultimately there to help Selah and Paloma when it mattered.
Jharrel Jerome made his feature film debut in Moonlight and has continued to work on incredible projects. He voiced the Prowler variant of Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and will do so again when the final instalment comes out. This year, he can be seen as Anthony Robles, a wrestler who was born with only one leg, in Unstoppable.
Gina Torres (Maybelle Summers)
Since playing Selah’s mother in 2019, Gina Torres (originally of Firefly and Suits fame) has had a starring role as paramedic Tommy Vega in 911: Lone Star. The Texas-based show is a spin-off of 911, which features a beautiful lesbian relationship between another paramedic, Henrietta Wilson, and her rocket scientist wife, Karen.
Jesse Williams (Headmaster Banton)
Every Grey’s Anatomy fan will recognise Jesse Williams as Jackson Avery. As both an actor and a producer, he has a spectacular list of credits, including a recurring role in Only Murders In The Building and Little Fires Everywhere. He had even won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short as the producer of Two Distant Strangers.
Jesse is also a civil rights activist. He is the youngest member on the board of directors for The Advancement Project, a think tank and advocacy group challenging racial hierarchies in America.
Ana Mulvoy-Ten (Bobby)
Bobby was the leader of the rival clique at Selah’s boarding school. As such, Ana Mulvoy-Ten has played the queen bee at a boarding school twice, having played Amber Millington in CBBC’s House Of Anubis. Since these projects, Ana has been in Teen Wolf and American Crime.
DIVA magazine celebrates 30 years in print in 2024. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
