A GENT (LESS) provocateur

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 , in which Michaela plays Arabella, a young writer who is sexually violated after her drink is spiked, and walks abewildering path