Neil Gaiman’s TV epic is making waves around the world – mainly for its outlandish scenes of a woman swallowing people whole in her vagina. What does the Nigerian-born actor who plays Bilquis think of it all?

If you’ve watched the new fantasy series American Gods, chances are you’re still talking about that scene. You know the one. The moment when Yetide Badaki’s Bilquis, the ancient goddess of love now scratching a living in modern-day Los Angeles, entices a man to her bedroom, demands that he worship her sexually, and, once he agrees, opens her legs and – there’s no other way to put this – swallows him whole through her vagina.



“I was really excited about that moment,” laughs Badaki. “I’m actually a massive geek so I’d read Neil Gaiman’s book [from which the series is adapted] when it came out in 2001. I was 20 and I remember reading that scene and going ‘wait, what just happened?’ Hold on a minute …”

We’re in a central London hotel room in which Bilquis herself would feel right at home. The walls are painted pink, the chairs are a duskier dark pink, and there are flower paintings on the wall. The whole effect is rather like being inside a womb, or a high-class brothel – a fact Badaki acknowledges with a grin: “Do you think they chose this room deliberately? Hmmm.”

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Landing the part of the eternally desirable goddess of love was a shock – “I was doing the washing up when the call came,” she says. “Let’s just say, a couple of plates were broken.”

She wasn’t the only one to have a strong reaction. Ever since her casting was announced, Badaki’s social media feeds have been filled with women of all ages expressing their excitement. “They contact me and just go yeaahhh … honestly that’s all they say.” She laughs again.

Why do they respond so strongly? “There’s a real sense of depth and strength in Bilquis,” she says. “Hers is a very old story – in every culture, there’s some reference to women and creation and power.” But it’s also an important message about representation. In a world where black women are still too often sidelined from their own stories, the 36-year-old Badaki has been cast as the ultimate representation of female desire. “It’s bringing it right to the forefront of the conversation, so the question becomes well why can’t a black woman be that person, why do people not see us in this way?” she says. “It really jumped out for a lot of people, this idea of a black goddess of love – and of course it’s completely true to the book. Neil Gaiman wrote it that way.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Hers is a very old story – in every culture, there’s some reference to women and creation and power.’ Photograph: Jan Thijs/2017 Starz Entertainment, LLC

It’s not the only theme to resonate. “One of the most compelling things about American Gods is that it’s a story about immigration,” she adds. “America is a tapestry and each person who comes in from somewhere else is a new thread.”

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In Badaki’s case, that somewhere else was Ibadan in Oyo State, Nigeria, although she became a US citizen three years ago. Do people underestimate the difficulty of the journey faced by would-be US citizens? “People don’t realise how long it takes, how much money it takes. It took me three years. I was denied at one point, and had to appeal. I’ve been to grad school, I pride myself on my love of research, but reading that paperwork I thought if English wasn’t my first language, how the hell would I do this? It was tough – I got sent back home three times for interviews. I lost jobs because of it. There were lots of tears.”

They weren’t all of sorrow. “When I finally got citizenship I cried again, this time with joy. It saddens me when people don’t realise how applying for citizenship is mainly a show of love for this country. I felt such pride that day, such a part of something. ”

That determination was honed during her time at Montreal’s McGill university, when her decision to go into acting led to fierce parental opposition. “When I told my father I was switching from environmental science to theatre studies, his response was well then you’re on your own. There I was, disowned and freaked out …” A supportive theatre teacher at McGill helped her apply to post-graduate programmes, and Badaki won a scholarship to Illinois State.

These days her father and stepmother are more understanding: “They came to my graduation at Illinois, which was a huge deal.” Her father won’t, however, be watching American Gods. “That’s just not happening,” she jokes. “My mum, on the other hand … I kept on asking her ‘are you sure you’re ok with watching this scene?’ Eventually she wrote just one line back to me: ‘Apparently you are more of a prude than I am’.”

New episodes of American Gods air on Starz in the US on Sunday and on Amazon Prime in the UK on Monday.