Did you know 'Selma' isn't the first time Carmen Ejogo has played Coretta Scott King?

British stunner Carmen Ejogo pretty much knew what she was getting into when she took on the role of Coretta Scott King in Selma — because she'd played the icon before.

In 2001, Ejogo starred opposite her real-life husband, Jeffrey Wright, in the HBO movie Boycott about Martin Luther King Jr. in the '50s. And, while doing her research for the role back then, she discovered a few fascinating things about King's widow.

We caught up with Carmen at the Independent Spirit Awards brunch in Hollywood, where she showed off her Coretta expertise:
"I did know, for example, that she was a trained singer, and a lot of people don't know that. I did know that she was the person that actually introduced Martin to a lot of the ideas of peaceful protest and pacifism and his whole philosophy and approach to leadership. That was fascinating. She was really quite progressive, which she kind of revealed more in her later life, after Martin had died, (as) somebody that really fought hard for LGBT rights and was really a second-wave feminist. What we know of her is really just the stand-by-your-man wife and mother figure. ... There was so much other stuff to know about this woman, and I hope in revealing in the film --- I didn't get to sing or be the progressive onscreen -- but, in revealing that there was frustration in her suggests that there was more to be discovered."