When Rihanna Felt Shy And Nervous on the Sets of ‘Ocean’s 8’: “I Am A Musician. I Do Not Act.”

Rihanna was a part of the 2018 heist/crime film Ocean's 8 alongside Helena Bonham Carter, Cate Blanchette, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, and Sandra Bullock. The highly anticipated female-oriented summer flick grossed a whopping $297.7 million worldwide! The Umbrella hitmaker revealed in an exclusive interview with Vogue in 2018 that her hacker character, Nine Ball, was inspired by her Barbadian roots. Talking about her experience of working with fellow female superstars in the classic sequel, Rihanna told Interview Magazine back in 2019, “I’m so shy... I walked into that thinking, I am a musician. I do not act. I don’t know anything about this. I felt like the nerd ball, walking in there like, "What the hell am I doing here?"” 

As per Indiewire, during a press conference at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur in 2018, film director Gary Ross recalled the first discussion he had with the Diamonds songstress about her character; it was "about leaning into her Caribbean roots,” said Ross. “We both love Bob Marley, and I mentioned dreadlocks and she jumped up and down. Then we decided on a green army jacket draped over her. This is just different than Rihanna gets to be in most her public appearances, and she really loved all that.” He continued to describe a scene from the film: "Rihanna, who’s the queen of the actual Met Gala, is stuck in a Halal truck. I think Rihanna just loved that,” said Ross. “She loved leaning into where she came from, and she gets to be queen of the Met Gala every year.”

Moreover, Rihanna had specially requested for her character in the film to sport dreadlocks. “Rihanna tries to have a lot of input in the film,” a source told US Weekly at the time. “Recently, she requested that her character should have dreadlocks.” Rihanna's longtime hairstylist, Yusef Williams, also spoke exclusively to Refinery29  back then about the styling of her character in Ocean's 8. He mentioned, "We thought it would be strong. Her locs would maintain that tie to Africa. She'd keep her accent. She wasn't just going to be some American girl in this movie. Nina Bell is still a Caribbean girl that just happens to be in America." 

Williams continued, "All in all, the locs are just really badass. I couldn't imagine her character without them." As for whether she'll have the style again, he stated, "It probably was the easiest style she's ever had, since she got to be free and cool and see herself differently. She's a huge pop star, and then we kind of stripped her down and gave her locs that we didn't make super, super pretty. She made them glamorous when she wanted and then super casual when she wanted. I thought it was cool to see her locs own the night whenever she went out. You will be seeing her with locs again, for sure. I don't know when, but it will happen."