It’s a few hours before the the New York premiere of “Highest 2 Lowest” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and star Ilfenesh Hadera is calm, and feeling right at home. It was even closer to home for director Spike Lee, whose production company 40 Acres and a Mule is headquartered just a few blocks from BAM.

“We kind of got the nerves out and cut our teeth in Cannes, which was like the ultimate premiere. Now I feel like I can handle any red carpet,” says Hadera, who lives in Harlem. The film debuted out of competition at the prestigious French festival in May. “I’m excited for the energy at this one here in Brooklyn, in New York. Obviously it’ll be a whole different audience and different experience.” 

After Cannes, Hadera began working with stylist Erin Walsh, who is dressing her for the New York premiere in a brown tulle floor-length dress by Aknvas. “ Erin knows that I’m scared of color,” she says. “Brown is not too scary for me.” At the moment, she’s wearing a polka dot Patou blazer and miniskirt, a callback to her vintage polka-dot Lanvin gown, sourced from the Albright Fashion Library for the Cannes premiere. “It was a scramble to find that,” she says, “ but it worked out in the end.”

“Highest 2 Lowest” marks an ongoing 15-year collaboration of working with Lee, who cast Hadera in her first narrative acting role, for an HBO pilot that didn’t get picked up. “ Any chance to work with Spike is like a dream,” Hadera says. “Since then, he’s kept me in work and has been a supporter. And honestly, one of my dearest friends.” 

As the female lead, Hadera stars in the film opposite Denzel Washington; other costars include A$AP Rocky, Jeffrey Wright and Ice Spice in her film debut. “Highest 2 Lowest” is an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 Japanese movie, “High and Low,” which Hadera only watched a month before they started shooting on location in New York.

“ He [Lee] actually put me onto Kurosawa many years ago. Like any good student does, I said, gimme a list of all the movies I must see,” she says. “When I saw that he was gonna be remaking ‘High and Low,’ I was like, ‘Oh God, this is gonna be awesome.’ So I immediately, like any actor does, reached out to my agent and I was like, ‘Hey, has anyone in the office seen the script?’”

Someone had read the script, and they had bad news: There wasn’t a role for Hadera in it.

Until there was. Hadera stars in the neo-noir thriller as Pam King, the wife of Washington’s David King, a successful music executive whose plans for his company are jeopardized by a ransom demand: his son has been kidnapped. Maybe.

“ Pam is a lover of music and art, a champion for and supporter of young artists. A devoted and loving mother and wife. Kind of the moral compass of the King family, and also fun and sweet,” says Hadera, describing her character. “And she’s got a great sense of style. I took so much of her closet home.

“ I sent Spike an email and I said, ‘Hey, Spike, there are a few things in Pam King’s closet that I would love to keep,’” she continues. “And he just forwarded the email to Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, who’s our costume designer, and said like, let Ilfe keep whatever she wants. So I went to the wardrobe truck and I left with garment bags under my arms. I felt like it was ‘Supermarket Sweepstakes’ or something. I didn’t get to keep the Cartier, but that was to be expected.”

After the BAM premiere, Hadera and the cast were headed west for the film’s premiere in Los Angeles, and then the actress will return to New York for some more press, and a little downtime, ahead of the film’s Sept. 5 Apple TV+ streaming release.

“ The movie’s out Friday, so maybe I’ll go see it in theaters incognito and see how it’s received,” she adds.