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In Sex Education season 3, Sudanese-American musician Dua Saleh plays Cal, a nonbinary student from Minneapolis who transfers to Moordale and finds themself dealing with an ultra-manipulative headteacher. Luckily, they have Jackson Marchetti (Kedar Williams-Stirling) at their side — and Cal is a much-needed voice of chillness and reason in Jackson's life.
Like their character, Dua is nonbinary, and has ties to Minneapolis, where they've lived for five years. They've moved 17 different times, living in Maine, New Jersey, the east African country Eritrea, and more. Their acting career previously focused on underground theatre at the 20% Theatre in the Twin Cities, an experience that was more for the “trans and queer community and myself" than for a public audience. Now, Dua is at the heart of a popular Netflix show as Sex Education's first nonbinary character, alongside Robyn Holdaway as their classmate Layla. And though that comes with a new set of pressures, Dua is taking them all in stride, playing a character who is full of life and nuance.
Below, Dua Saleh talked to Teen Vogue about solitude, clothing, and how Cal isn't “a caricature" of a nonbinary person.
Teen Vogue: What made you want to take this on as your first acting role? What drew you to Cal?
Dua Saleh: What drew me to the character is, I don't really see that many nonbinary characters depicted in ways that are authentic and true to a whole person. It didn't feel like Cal was a caricature of what a nonbinary person is supposed to be. Cal seems to be somebody who is their own self. It's just like a teenager trying to figure sh*t out.
TV: Seeing some of the reactions to your character already — what is it like seeing that excitement from people who want to see fully-fledged nonbinary characters on screen?
DS: It feels really invigorating. I feel a sense of humility right now. I'm just feeling the weight of everything and the power of the different communities that I claim or that claim me. Knowing that a role like this is so remarkable and so important and has such historical value progress-wise, is making me reflect a lot, and have a lot of gratitude for where the world is going and how we can find ourselves in these characters and how we can portray these characters. Just being ourselves, not having to have somebody else play us. It feels amazing.
TV: How are you balancing that positive pressure with just taking care of yourself and making sure you're feeling okay?
DS: I learned a lot from Sex Education and being in Wales about solitude, especially during a lockdown. Staying in and still being surrounded by nature, seeing the hills. It feels nice to unplug and not always be in limits of the pressure, I'm not going to lie. Everything that I did was for me. Even in being an indie artist, I've been able to make a lot of traction as a musician, but the visibility of Sex Education is far past that. So I'm trying to find ways to find pockets of time to be myself, which has been pretty nice actually.
TV: Did it inspire your music at all, the filming or having that solitude?
DS: I think the solitude did help at the beginning when there was less of an intense schedule. Actually the song “Signs,” I recorded it out in Wales the first two weeks that I was there. So having that time to myself, not being surrounded by any distractions or friends or family members helped me create different worlds.
TV: What were you like in high school? What was it like to go back to that time for this?
DS: I was very active in high school. I was in debate club. I did a lot of after school programs, art, space stuff. I was a student organizer. So we did a lot of walkouts and protests and stuff like that. I was trying to figure out city planning and urban planning for some reason, so I was an intern. I was doing a lot of sh*t for some reason, but I was very different from Cal. I didn't smoke, I didn't skate. I was cool with skaters and stuff, but I don't know. I think I was just more serious and also scared of my mom. But once I moved out, I was a stoner, so funny how life works out.
TV: What feels the most true to you about Cal and the depiction of Minneapolis?
DS: Minneapolis is kind of like a stoner, skater town. A lot of nonbinary people, a lot of like queer people. It's a very safe space. So I think they carry a lot of the spirit of the chillness of Minneapolis. They care deeply about art. Minneapolis has huge art districts in multiple different places and has a lot of art resources. And also Minneapolis — and Sudan, I don't know if Cal is from Sudan — but Minneapolis is known for having the spirit of revolution. Recently with the police killings, like George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis and Philando Castile was murdered in St. Paul, which is where I primarily lived. But there's a lot of activism and organizing around that and around trans-ness and queerness and equity, for people at the cusps of society. So I think Cal carries a lot of that with them, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's because I'm from Minneapolis just cause I've like only lived there for five years. But I did do a lot of research just music-wise to try to figure out what they would listen to and stuff like that, since they're from Minneapolis, and what they would vibe to.
TV: There's a part in season 3 when Cal is defending themself about the school uniforms and talking about loose clothing and how important that is to them. What do you think of how fashion relates to how Cal thinks about their identity?
DS: Yeah, there are many things that Cal does that are in conversation with their own body and themselves. One of those things is binding. Binding is something that helps validate Cal, and wearing expressive textures and clothing that aren't necessarily tied to… no texture and cloth is tied to a certain gender, but loose-fitted clothing. Honestly, I don't think they're really thinking about their gender as much, or they are, but they're also thinking about comfortability, just because they're a skater. Clothing is an expression of gender in some ways, but it's also an expression of just them being a teenager and then being oh, "I love skate culture" etc, etc.
TV: With Cal and Jackson, what do you think each of them find in the other? I'm curious what you think about their friendship.
DS: It's an interesting friendship. They both have anxiety. They both go to the wildest school that suddenly is trying to change things institutionally. But I think they're at opposite ends of spectrums in terms of personality and what they think about often. With Jackson, he seems to be more worried about his future. He's always worried about what's coming next, versus Cal [who] exists in the now and… can feel impassioned, but that's just because they're feeling the tides of life lately. They're just emoting always. But I think they both ground each other and they make each other think about that other part of their mind. They vibe with each other in a way, there's a connection they have that allows them to be at ease, but also to challenge each other.
TV: How has this experience shaped what you want to do next? Does it make you want to do more acting projects or specific kinds of storytelling?
DS: I'd love to continue acting, just as I've had such a wonderful experience with the show, and challenging myself and pushing myself to access different parts of my brain that I probably wouldn't have accessed if I was just thinking about my own story. Also, the creative director for all of my music videos or the director actually for all of my music videos is asking me to direct a music video in the future. I was paying attention to the directors and the way that everything was set up onset while I was in Wales. Right now I'm not really thinking too far into the future. I'm just thinking about what's coming directly next. I've been in L.A. focusing on a project that I'm working on, back and forth between here and New York. I'm just trying to focus on music for now.
Speaking of new music, Dua has a new song with Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter Amaarae out on Sept 24th, the first single from their forthcoming CROSSOVER EP. “This new project is symbolic of the various transitions occurring in my life as I enter through a more mainstream layer of visibility in the arts,” Dua shared in a statement, explaining that the song takes cues from Afrobeats with “undercurrents” of hyperpop. "Lyrically, I’m using satire, trans-dimensional pop dialects, and hip-hop theatrics to create an imaginative scene. I find the beauty and humor in my upward mobility and am giving fans hints on my experiences during this period."
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