We're Trained. Stop Telling Us We're Not.

I'm no longer one to engage in debates on race in the entertainment industry. Yes, it's glaringly and laughably disingenuousness, slapping a Diversity Disclaimer on a casting breakdown while specifying that the leads MUST be Caucasian, but I also realize that I live in a time where there are more Black, Latino, and Asian faces in the popular consciousness than ever before. And I celebrate that, and find it highly encouraging. So what I'm about to write in response to Kelley L. Carter's hugely problematic article The Rise of the Black British Actor will not focus on that aspect. What it will focus on is Ms. Carter's and Ava DuVernay's disappointing ignorance regarding American actor training in general—an ignorance that white actors have dealt with for decades and is now poisoning the Black artist's well.

On January 5^th, 2015, at 2:11pm, Buzzfeed Reporter Kelley L. Carter posted an article called “The Rise of the Black British Actor”. It is, essentially, a profile of actor David Oyelowo, and a promotional piece for the new film Selma, but it also reads as a paean to British Actor Training; exactly what British Actor Training is is not clearly defined, which leads me to believe that neither Ms. Carter nor Ms. DuVernay really know what they are talking about.

To borrow a British term, let's “take the piss” out of this column, a piece at a time, shall we?

“So seven years ago, [Oyelowo] and his wife Jessica made the decision to head to Los Angeles, with the hope being that he’d find the type of work fitting for his training at the esteemed London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.”

We're currently in a Golden Age of Television (mostly cable television), and extraordinary movies do get made, and have been made for quite some time, but I don't know of any actor with elite conservatory training that regards Los Angeles as a mecca for work befitting that training. It sounds condescending, but once you've spent several years working on material written by the greatest writers of the past 500 years, a guest spot on [insert generic episodic show here] seems lacking by comparison. Just saying.

“I’m sorry — they were just really good!” [Ava] DuVernay mock-wailed in defense of her casting British actors during a recent interview with BuzzFeed News. “David is just an extraordinary artist. He is unlike anything I’ve come across in terms of his depth of his preparation, the openness of his heart with this part — totally sinking in and a desire to disappear into this, to give his whole self over to it. That level of commitment is the kind of thing you hear when you read Premiere magazine articles about Daniel Day-Lewis preparing. I would see it happen. And know how important it was to him. And to be a partner with him in this performance was just an honor, and at that point, you could be any nationality.”

Earlier in the article Ms. Carter wrote that Mr. Oyelowo was given the script seven years ago (albeit in a different version). I would certainly hope that, in that span of time, Mr. Oyelowo had deigned to do a bit of homework.

The point here isn't to bash Mr. Oyelowo, whose work and success I actually admire greatly. But this excerpt does begin to show a bias for British actors, as if notorious workhorse actors like Denzel Washington never existed.

"Still, there is something to be said about the technical training that many actors receive in England."

But nothing to be said, apparently, for the technical training that many actors receive at institutions like NYU, Yale, and Juilliard, here in the United States. I'm actually not sure what the term “technical training” even means, and I'm willing to bet that Kelley Carter of Buzzfeed doesn't know what it means, either.

“But it’s more than just the actors navigating across the Atlantic to find great work. They’re winning these roles because many of them are able to utilize their U.K. theater backgrounds and translate them to major Hollywood productions, something that works quite well with the deeply constructed roles many are landing.”

This is confusing. Outside of cultural tastes, I'm not sure what's different about doing theatre in the UK versus doing theatre here in the United States. Also, earlier in the article Ms. Carter suggested that the reason that we're experiencing this Afro-British Actor Boom is because they could not find sufficient meaningful work at home in Britain. So how could these actors have gained a strong grounding in theatre if they couldn't find the work needed to gain a strong grounding in theatre?

And since when does theatre training guarantee success in Hollywood? I and many of my colleagues have extensive New York stage credits and have worked at many of the nation's top theatres. In fact as I write this I'm just about to close a run at Washington, D.C.'s esteemed Shakespeare Theatre Company, where my Caliban has been extraordinarily well-received.

By Ms. Carter's logic, shouldn't I be a movie star by now?

“'I think there’s something about the stage, because they have that stage preparation,' DuVernay said. 'Their work is really steeped in theater. Our system of creating actors is a lot more commercial. … there’s a depth in the character building that’s really wonderful.'”

I moved to New York City from Washington, D.C. on August 26^th, 2006. At first I rented out a shitty little room way up in Washington Heights, before renting out a room way out in Queens.

For the next three years, I would rise at 7 or 7:30am, catch a crowded subway car down to the Tisch School of the Arts at 721 Broadway, and spend 9am to 6pm doing breathing exercises, doing Alexander technique, doing speech drills, doing movement work, crying, singing, working on classical texts, crying some more, working on the likes of Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Shakespeare, Wilson, doing clown work, playing theatre games and improv games, and crying. Then I would get an hour for dinner. Then I would go to rehearsal from 7pm to 11pm. I probably cried at some point during that time.

I would then ride the train home and arrive at some time after midnight and try to work on whatever texts I could for class the next day before passing out and waking up 4 or 5 hours later, wearily jostling for space on the crowded R train. And I would start the whole process over again. Saturday was my day off. During the summers I was lucky enough to work as an actor, even though I made no money and would have to take out more loans in the coming school year. I never got a break.

I think that's as far from “commercial” a system of creating an actor as you can get.

I have colleagues that went to distinguished conservatories such as Yale, Juilliard, and the American Conservatory Theatre, and we've all pretty much gone through the ringer in the same way. And these schools have been around for decades and have been gateways to introducing us to many, many wonderful actors; some are household names, many are not. But this idea that there is a “system” that creates actors “commercially” in this country is simply wrong and reveals an unfortunate ignorance on Ms. DuVernay's part in regards to the high quality training many actors receive in this country.

It seems that, in Ms. DuVernay's mind (and the minds of many, many others who should know better), my being American is what bars me from implementing “depth in character-building”.

The irony in all this is that in Selma she cast two Americans—Colman Domingo and Andre Holland, that have strong theatrical backgrounds: the former broke through on Broadway and has been working in New York (and London!!!) ever since, and the latter is a graduate of the very same conservatory where I received my training.

“There also is a cultural disconnect that allows actors like Oyelowo and Ejogo [who plays Coretta Scott-King in “Selma”] to strip down iconic figures like the Kings and play them with vulnerability and without falling into, say, the fear (and in some cases, the burden) that American actors steeped in historical traditions may have.“I’ve been trying to convince myself that being British has had no bearing on any of this, but actually I think that’s where it served me well,” Ejogo told BuzzFeed News. “I’m not as entrenched in the history so immediately. ... I didn’t know who Coretta was until I played her the first time. And I think I have permission — that’s the definition of the artist, in my opinion — to be a little deviant. It wasn’t as daunting as it might have been for an American actress. An African-American actress … that might have been a bit more of a challenge.”

This is an interesting point, and I wish Ms. Carter had focused more on this aspect: do we, as Black Americans, invest too much in our history? Viola Davis, in an interview with Tavis Smiley, put it brilliantly: “We, as African American artists, are moreconcerned with image and message and not execution”.

Ms. Davis trained at Juilliard, by the way. I mean, it's no London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, but I think it's alright.

The following is a quote from Mr. Oyelowo:

“We went to conservatoires to train for three years: We did classical theater; we did modern theater. I think that the reason why we’re having this moment we’re in right now, is because all of that hard work is now butting up against the time whereby a very big discernible appetite.”

Outside of the lack of a proof-reader, the most problematic part of this quote—which almost smacks of arrogance—is the implication that American actors are NOT receiving this type of training.

“I think people recognize with British actors that they do a lot of training, and I think people really respect that a lot of them have gone to places like Rose Bruford [College],” said [Naomi] Harris. “I went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and trained for two years. They respect that we generally start off in theater and have a theater background. Film producers really like that.”

And again, please see above. I, personally, have yet to meet a film (or television) producer that regards my extensive theatrical resume as an asset. To be frank, I think film producers really like that you're British. Not to mention that actors like Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson also started out in theatre.

At some point a bit later in the article, which resumes the standard promotional track regarding Selma and portraying Dr. King, Oyelowo says “Even though I’m not an American, I know what inequality feels like.” I'm being a bit unfair and taking this quote out of context, but I find it fitting to include here, since I would argue that inequality could also be an entire industry looking down on you because you are not British.

Ben.

I've been holding this inside all day. But I need to tell you all about a young man named Benjamin Buckley.

I met Ben back in the summer of 2008 when we were apart of the acting company at the Chautauqua Theatre Festival. Whereas most of us had auditioned through our fancy conservatory programs, Ben--who was a struggling actor based in Chicago at the time--was there based on a recommendation. Not too shabby.

Ben and I were very similar; bright dispositions with a dark interior, and I think we understood each other pretty well, and as we found ourselves working together we forged a great bond. "I see you, Clifton, I see you," he once said, knowingly wagging his finger at me, acknowledging that, although I presented myself one way, what was going on underneath was much more complex. And I knew he'd seen it, because I knew that he was the same. That's one of the reasons we got on so well. That and our penchant for laughing at things that only we seemed to find ridiculous and absurd--outsiders with a knack for sniffing out bullshit.

Life took us on different paths after that summer, and we didn't contact each other again. But that didn't stop me from thinking about him from time to time.

I learned today that he threw himself from atop a nine-story building several months ago.

Ben killed himself.

I respect the decision he made. Sometimes you get to a place where you just want the pain to stop. Whatever is raging inside of you becomes overwhelming, and drugs don't work, sex doesn't work, love doesn't work, money doesn't work, work doesn't work, nothing works to fill up that hole inside of you, that void. Nothing soothes that wound, the immensity of it.

I've spent nearly the entire day counterintuitively trying to process all this and trying not to think about what happened. Hasn't worked. I tried to work some of my feelings out via the show tonight, but that didn't really work either.

Then backstage, right before the last scene, I whispered to myself "why did you do that, Ben?" And I choked the tears back and ran on for my final entrance.

When someone dies you often get people coming out of the woodwork saying "he was such a great guy, a great spirit, blah blah blah", and I'm cynical so to me it's all old hat. But it's true. Ben was pretty fucking cool. I'm sorry that he was suffering the way that he was; I'm sorry his family and friends have to pick up the pieces. I'm sorry we didn't keep better tabs on each other.

I don't like what he did, but he did what he felt he had to do, and I respect that.

It's too late to let you know now, but I love ya, Ben. Really do.

Loved.