The 'One Love' actor spoke with ET.
For Kingsley Ben-Adir, portraying the legendary musician Bob Marley with true authenticity took an enormous level of dedication and hard work.
So much hard work, in fact, the 37-year-old actor was working on getting into character while he was still on the set of another project.
While recently promoting his new biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, in London, Ben-Adir opened up to ET's Kevin Frazier in London about preparing for the role while filming his scenes in the Barbie movie.
Looking back at the early days of developing and preparing for One Love, Ben-Adir explained that he and the producers agreed that "authenticity and language and how Bob spoke [were] the most important thing, and [we're] not white-washing anything."
This meant that Ben-Adir took it upon himself to get Marley's voice and cadence down perfectly -- as well as his musicality.
"I enjoyed it thoroughly," Ben-Adir shared of listening to Marley's music and audio of him speaking. "Because it was an excuse to listen to Bob all the time."
Ben-Adir admitted he was even listening to Marley while shooting Barbie, in which he played one of the many Kens, alongside Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa and Scott Evans.
"I just wanted to get going, because I was like, 'I'm on this for three and a half months and I can't waste any time. I have to start now!'" Ben-Adir explained. "Especially with the guitar and the language, you know? That's gonna be a slow process and you've got to get the foundational steps in."
"On film sets, there's a lot of time downtime... it just made sense to go and listen to Bob and try to understand the language and learn the guitar," he added.
Despite practicing and working to find Marley's voice between shooting scenes for Barbie, Ben-Adir admitted that he didn't really share his journey with anyone, explaining, "My process was private for as long as possible -- until I needed help."
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green -- and produced in partnership with the Marley family -- One Love also stars Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Anthony Welsh, Michael Gandolfini, Umi Myers, and Nadine Marshall.
The project is one of the first authorized biopics of the groundbreaking artist, and Bob's son, Ziggy Marley, serves as a producer, alongside Rita Marley, Cedella Marley, Robert Teitel, Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, and Dede Gardner, and executive producers Richard Hewitt, Orly Marley, and Matt Solodky. Bob Marley: One Love hits theaters on Feb. 14.
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