Jesse Williamsis never one to avoid a hot-button issue.
But Williams is also engaging with another prominent topic of discussion whether straight actors should play gay characters.
“It should generate conversation,” he tells EW.
Joan Marcus
“Look, I’m Black.
We’ve had white people playing our roles ad nauseam for centuries.
Women weren’t even allowed to be on the stage until this last century.
Take Me Out.Joan Marcus
Men played all the roles.
And people want to be able to be counted and be included.”
I don’t claim to have a solve for all of it.
I’m deeply sensitive to it.
JESSE WILLIAMS:The material is incredible.
There’s a couple of things at play.
I didn’t want to be too comfortable.
I wanted to do something very different.
If I’m going to a make a shift, I want to make a shift with purpose.
I wanted to do something that was really going to challenge me and scare me.
But the issues around identity and self-realization and discrimination and purpose, all of these themes were relevant.
It’s smart, fast, intellectually and spiritually and emotionally stimulating and challenging.
It’s funny as hell.
The cast is incredible.
Every moment, every word, every feeling, every relationship is its own thing.
I don’t put them all into a murky pot together.
Obviously, there are overarching elements and themes to discrimination and abuse of power period.
Of course there’s something similar between sexism and equal pay and racism.
There’s a venn diagram with shared space.
But in the realities of how this human being’s character operates, he juggles with that consistently.
Why are you responding to me this way?
Why does my opinion not have value here?
Is it because of this, is it because of that, is it just because of my attitude?
Is it just because of my performance, is it because of my race?
Is it because of what I announce in terms of my orientation?
This is part of the snow blindness created by oppression in this country by a dominant group.
Male dominated white power creates a lot of issues.
I’ve definitely been discriminated against many, many times because of my race.
That doesn’t mean that’s always why it happened.
But it’s a reasonable hypothesis that it could be.
But one of the things that is sometimes more tricky than overt discrimination is guessing wrong.
It falls right into the trap.
Why is this happening?
This never happened to me before?
It was incomprehensible; I couldn’t imagine.
You were originally supposed to mount this production in spring 2020.
How has the pandemic delay shifted or changed your relationship to the material?
Yeah, it’s actually a gift.
I can’t speak for anybody else, but two elements have shifted.
One is I’m changed.
Probably just by way of growing and changing.
It’s been a really meaningful last few years [with] a lot changes in my life.
I’m better equipped to have more tools in my toolbox and more access to myself.
So that’s one end.
How much s– they’re gonna allow to be shoveled into them.
All of that just tunes our frequencies a little bit differently.
Our follicles are more ready to receive and possibly consider positions and experiences outside of our own.
We’re all better for it.
It was announced you were working on a TV adaptation of the play.
Is that still a possibility?
It’s still in the works.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
