I’m not interested in portraying Shylock as an irredeemable villain. I’m interested in portraying villains and showing their humanity. Even if you’re playing Hitler, I think your job is to show his humanity. Because the minute you play a villain and make him the other, make him completely the other, then we don’t have to take any responsibility for the human condition, and we don’t learn anything. It just becomes, you know, “Ooh, Afghan terrorist equals demon,” right?
What do we learn if we say that? We don’t learn anything. And there’s no possibility in theater or film for learning, for growth, and for reconciliation if that’s how we play our villains. But if we play our villains going, “Oh, my god, young Afghan boy grows up and sees all this terrible stuff happen because of the Soviet Union, and then because of the United States’ complicity in this kinda stuff, and all that terrible stuff turns this person into a terrorist,” I’m not gonna say terrorism is okay, but I understand how that happens. Then we can learn something. And we can communicate it to somebody else. And we can feel compassion. And we can learn. And we can grow.
This is an excerpt from a talk I gave on acting as a career as part of the Working Professional Series at the Theater Department of Lehman College. It is also available as a transcript and podcast on the Lehman College Website.
What do we learn if we say that? We don’t learn anything. And there’s no possibility in theater or film for learning, for growth, and for reconciliation if that’s how we play our villains. But if we play our villains going, “Oh, my god, young Afghan boy grows up and sees all this terrible stuff happen because of the Soviet Union, and then because of the United States’ complicity in this kinda stuff, and all that terrible stuff turns this person into a terrorist,” I’m not gonna say terrorism is okay, but I understand how that happens. Then we can learn something. And we can communicate it to somebody else. And we can feel compassion. And we can learn. And we can grow.
This is an excerpt from a talk I gave on acting as a career as part of the Working Professional Series at the Theater Department of Lehman College. It is also available as a transcript and podcast on the Lehman College Website.
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