Agent (Less) Provocateur

The series I May Destroy You holds up a mirror to issues of sexual consent and recovery from trauma… and to its creator, writer and star Michaela Coel, who has brought a revitalising voice to the entertainment industry.

- Maya Skillen

Michaela Coel is a force to be reckoned with. The 33-year-old has shaken up the entertainment industry as showrunner of the genre-twisting, acutely unsettling series I May Destroy You. But provocative as she is, the British star isn’t interested in shock tactics or strong-arming anyone into picking a side, nor is she soap-boxing. Michaela is simply doing things the way she wants to do them: with determination and empathy.

‘I spent a lot of my life pleading, hoping for empathy,’ she says. ‘It feels only fitting for me to try to do the same thing. I think it crosses very stubborn wirings in our brain.’

This impulse is at the heart of I May Destroy You, in which Michaela plays Arabella, a young writer who is sexually violated after her drink is spiked, and walks a bewildering path back from trauma to wholeness. The series is based on Michaela’s own experience of sexual assault and its shattering effects, and at times it makes for discomforting TV.

‘I’m not saying anything is wrong or right,’ she told Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. ‘I’m just putting characters in a frame and watching them interact. I want us to see how uncomfortable it is. It’s not so easy to place yourself in a camp – it’s really hard when you can see where both sides are coming from.’