The Man in My Basement's Nadia Latif: "There will be people who disagree with my interpretations, but that's okay"

There will be a raft of questions you're left with after watching The Man in My Basement, that's for certain. Now available to stream on Disney+ in the UK, the film is a feature debut for Nadia Latif, whose career has been very much grounded in the theatre world.

Latif has helmed stage productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Almeida and Donmar Warehouse (to name a few) and was the Associate Director of the Young Vic Theatre. Her impressive career journey also includes directing short films (White Girl, which was funded by the BFI and They Heard Him Shout Allahu Akbar for Film4).

Now, she's tackling the mind-bending source material of Walter Mosley's 2004 novel, The Man in My Basement. She came across the book whilst studying English Literature at university. The course – as this writer very much knows and can vouch for – is one that is "dominated by writers who are white and predominantly male", Latif explains.

Having read a lot of colonial and post-colonial fiction at the time, Latif came across Mosley's novel "by accident" when it was left on a table. "It just struck me as being so unusual. I didn't know what was going to happen, page by page.

"Then it was both dealing with these really massive ideas about history and evil and yet, at the same time, it was about this quite small community in America. It was really funny and it was kind of filthy."

Describing the novel as a "wild ride", 20 years on, Latif heard that a film company had the rights to it and was making a film. It was a natural yes for her because the memory of how the novel first made her feel was so palpable. That feeling was what she wanted to recreate for the viewer when they first sit down to watch The Man in My Basement.

"I think the job when you're adapting anything, but particularly when you're adapting a book, is to try and recreate the effect that the book had on the first reader," she explains. "Which is to say, I think even if you're dealing with a piece of historical fiction, you're not dealing with it as though it was a piece of history, because it was a current piece of literature to the initial reader.

"So you've got to think, relative to now, how do I recreate that experience? And so with The Man in My Basement, I was really lucky, because I am that original reader. I remember reading this book and I remember how it made me feel."

Referring to the two as cousins and not twins, Latif explains that the film, in her opinion, is a lot darker than the book, although she retains that the novel is sadder. Speaking about the fact that the film is "fundamentally me looking at the book", Latif says that her perspective on the subject matter "as an African woman looking at this American and global story" is one way of viewing. But she knows that perspective will understandably change based on who's watching.

The film sees Charles (Corey Hawkins) – an African American man who's a bit down on his luck and stuck in a rut – agree to rent out his basement to the enigmatic white businessman who turns up on his doorstep randomly one day, Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe).

As you can imagine with any kind of pulsating psychological thriller, there's a lot more that lies beneath the surface than that general premise. The film packs in symbolism and subtle references that will leave the viewer thinking about ownership, wealth, race and who gets to 'own' history. Whilst the book is set in 2004, Latif wanted to push the timeline back and has set the film in 1994 due to the year being "an extraordinary moment in global Black culture".

"There was this proliferation of African American culture being sold to us in a certain way through sitcoms like Fresh Prince and The Cosby Show. There was a certain version of Black success being sold through music, sport and all these things," she explains.

"So you've got that happening in America. And then, of course, on the other side of the Atlantic, you have the genocide of a million people in Rwanda. That, to me, felt like a very interesting juxtaposition between versions of being Black.

"There are two pieces of news that occur on the television in the film. One of them is a report from the trial of OJ Simpson, which also happened in 1994, and then the recurring news of the Rwandan genocide."

That contrast in itself shows the "different scales of violence" within the film, Latif says, highlighting "one person and the things that they could do and then, a million people". In a bid to ring true to the classic tension we see build up in any good thriller, Latif also explains that being on the cusp of the internet was also integral to the film. It's why so much of the film is centred around books and the notion of searching for meaning through them.

While the film may initially centre on the dynamic between Charles and Anniston, it quickly becomes apparent that it's packed with plenty of meaty themes. It may be set in the '90s, but the conversations around historical artefact ownership and history in general remain ever-present, even now in 2025.

"There's no point in history where this isn't relevant because I think we're always ignoring a conflict on the television," Latif says. "I think we don't care about Black African lives generally dying – I think this is a recurring theme of modern history."

Latif explains that whilst many may simply look at the news and label what they see as a "mysterious African conflict" with no desire to understand further, "it's not that complicated". "Black and brown people are dying in their hundreds of thousands. I don't think that's exclusive to Black and brown people, but I think there is a tendency to care about African lives less in the Western media. I think that if we were to have set the film today, [Charles] would have been ignoring the news of an African conflict."

She continues: "But I do think that the conversation that we are currently having about the return of African artefacts to their countries of origin is alive at the moment in a way that is interesting, but also very complicated. I don't think there are clear answers about why and under what conditions those things should be returned.

"I do believe that they should be returned, but actually what the value of them is. I was very moved watching Mati Diop's film Dahomey, which is about the return of artefacts to Benin. I was incredibly moved by these people being able to see their own history and it is very beautiful. But the film ends with a discourse about whether it matters. Does it? Is it going to make life better?

"I think that's always the mysterious power that history holds over us, it is important but we can't really put our finger on why. It's like it's something that's spiritually important, but definitely doesn't put food on your table."

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Latif adds: "I think that the conversation about artefacts being returned is a separate conversation to the conversation about reparations. It's separate, but adjacent. They're cousins. I think that those conversations are also incredibly interesting.

"Can you put a monetary value on the suffering of millions of people? How do we decide what that number is? I think those conversations are really alive today."

Whilst one can look at The Man in My Basement and see the way it interrogates those larger themes of ownership, it also looks at it on a more personal level also. Charles is in a family home that holds so much emotional value, as well as historical value, which leads him to wonder more about his own history.

It's about that feeling of "what is it to own your home?" Latif says, with Charles having a remarkable understanding of the fact that this is where his family is from – but is it? "We don't know where they were from when they came from Africa," Latif explains. "I think that is a very interesting schism in African American history; what point can you trace yourself back to and when does it start at a slavery plantation?"

The interesting thing in the film is that Charles contests that his family were never enslaved, something that was passed down to him by his mother who believed the same. It's a unique tension to America that Latif wanted to capture in the film and is "totally an American story". The director never once thought of setting The Man in My Basement on this side of the pond, even though there's plenty of denial within Britain's own history, Latif jokes.

When the conversation turns to easter eggs and symbols she put in to the film, Latif lights up further referencing Lone Ranger, Killer of Sheep and Moby Dick.

It's clear that depending on what you bring to the film, you'll likely finish watching it with a different outlook than perhaps the person sat next to you.

"I think it's Arthur Jafar who said: 'My work is for Black people, but white people get something from it.' I just think that's a great way to make things. I know who I'm making it for and I know what their experience of it will be because I'm also Black. I'm not every version of Black, I'm my own version of Black.

"There will be people who disagree with my interpretations of things, that's okay. The whole audience can never have the same experience because we're different. To try and give a flattened out universal experience is just not true, it can't happen. So you might as well embrace it," Latif says.

Whilst the film may divide opinion and certainly get people talking, that's really the essence of what Latif has set out to do in both her theatre and film work. "To encourage people to have different responses based on who they are and that you're not going for something universal, you're going for something incredibly specific," she states.

As for what the future holds both on screen and on stage, Latif's goal is a simple one: to surprise. While she says that the notion of leaving audiences uncomfortable is "slightly overstated", she doesn't want to create art that has any easy answers.

"I think it's overstated that people want to go to the cinema or to the theatre to see themselves reflected back exactly. I think that, in many ways, I'm disappointed when I go and I feel like I know exactly who these characters are or this situation is. I want to see people put in surprising situations or dilemmas.

"I feel like my goal is always for somebody to see themselves in a way that they have never seen themselves before. Because I also think that, even if you have an audience who are incredibly different or diverse ... if you can put them all in a position of surprise, that's weirdly democratic because everybody is united in not knowing what the hell is going to happen next."

She concludes: "I feel like my work is hopefully trying to always just be disruptive, to disrupt how people understand themselves and the world around them."

The Man in My Basement is available to stream on Disney+. You can sign up to Disney+ from £4.99 a month now.

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