Billy Dee Williams stated this week he believes actors needs to be allowed to do blackface, particularly praising Laurence Olivier’s efficiency in Othello.
“When he did Othello, I fell out laughing,” Williams stated of Olivier on Sunday’s episode of Membership Random With Invoice Maher. Within the 1965 movie, Olivier wore blackface to play the movie’s titular character. “He caught his ass out and walked round as a result of Black persons are imagined to have large asses.”
Maher replied to Williams’ remark by saying, “At present, they might by no means allow you to do this.”
Williams then requested Maher, “Why?” to which Maher requested, in shock: “Blackface?”
“Why not? You need to do it,” Williams stated. “For those who’re an actor, it’s best to do something you need to do.”
In response to his perspective, Maher identified that Williams, 87, “really lived in a interval the place you couldn’t play the elements it’s best to’ve performed.”
“The purpose is,” Williams continued, “you don’t undergo life feeling like, ‘I’m a sufferer.’ I refuse to undergo life saying to the world, ‘I’m pissed off.’ I’m not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day.”
Williams and Maher’s dialog started with a point out of Bradley Cooper’s controversial prosthetic nostril in final 12 months’s Oscar-nominated Maestro. For his portrayal of legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein, Cooper donned a faux nostril that some deemed antisemitic.
“And Bradley Cooper thinks he’s acquired an issue with the nostril,” Maher stated of the talk, which was met with laughs from Williams.
Williams performed Lando Calrissian in 1980’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Again and reprised the position for 1983’s Return of the Jedi and 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker.