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Sabrina Carpenter on her new movie “The Hate U Give”: “I hope it wakes [people] up a little bit”

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Erika Doss/TM & © 2018 Twentieth Century Fox Film CorporationOver the past few months, you’ve been hearing Sabrina Carpenter sing, but this weekend, you can go to the movies and watch her act.

The “Almost Love” singer is one of the stars of acclaimed new film The Hate U Give.  It’s about Starr, a black teen from a poor neighborhood who attends a mostly white prep school. Starr, played by Amandla Stenberg, finds her loyalties divided when her childhood best friend is shot by the police.

Sabrina plays Starr’s friend Hailey, a racially insensitive girl who doesn’t realize how privileged she is. 

“It definitely wasn’t a role that I…was dying to play,” Sabrina tells ABC Radio. “But the movie was what sold me and the book was what sold me…I was a huge fan of the book before I knew they were turning it into a movie.”

Sabrina says she was O.K. with playing an unsympathetic character like Hailey because the film explains why she is the way that she is.

“What made me feel so much better about doing it was…there wasn’t any character that didn’t have a motivation or didn’t have a reason,” she tells ABC Radio. “We had so much rehearsal with the director….who’s amazing at really digging deep on what our characters were going through, and what was going through their heads when they were saying certain things.”

Sabrina’s now hoping that playing Hailey will encourage people take a good hard look at themselves.

“If people do see my character within themselves,  I hope it wakes them up a little bit and I hope they take note,” she tells ABC Radio. “‘Cause she’s a little ignorant.  And sometimes we are and we don’t recognize it. And I think this movie really forces you to recognize it.”

 

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