“I was like, ‘If you’re here, just please be in the space, let us know that we’re, we’re doing something right. Please let us know that this is going in the right direction.’”

Speaking at a Screen Talk at the London Film Festival on Monday (12 October), the actor recalled asking her ancestors to be present throughout filming, saying she believes those called upon to be portrayed in film and television don’t simply disappear from the space. 

From a sudden break in the rain that brought a rainbow just as the crew prepared to film Harriet’s passage to freedom, to a series of unexplained encounters on set, Erivo said the experience became increasingly spiritual as filming went on.

Erivo went on to recall how some days on set she felt exhausted, but “somehow we'd moved through, and things would happen, and you'd be like, I don't know how this happened.”

Erivo also described a chase scene where she ran past a wasp nest without getting stung, only for the wasps to come out when someone else ran past. After helping get everyone to safety, the wasps miraculously disappeared: “The next day, no one was around, one wasp.”

For Erivo, those series of events were a reminder that she wasn't alone in telling Harriet's story.