Should Black British Actors Be Playing African American Roles?
The recent release of Harriet has been causing quite a stir among some African Americans who feel the role of Harriet Tubman should have went to an American. People feel so strongly about their position that they don’t even care to see the film. Cynthia Enrivo, the actress who played Harriet Tubman who has starred as Celie in The Color Purple musical on Broadway and well be playing Aretha Franklin in an upcoming Nat-Geo biopic has been the subject of some of the backlash. Past tweets from Cynthia Enrivo have surfaced online that show Enrivo appearing to mock African Americans. People have been adamant online saying they will not pay to see the film because of the comments made by the main actress and the fact that they were tired of seeing slave movies in general. The last notable slave film 12 Years A Slave also starred a British actor in the lead role. Chiwetal Eijorfor earned an Academy Award nomination for his depictions of free man sold into slavery.
When ‘Get Out’ came out Samuel L Jackson critiqued the choice of choosing British actor Daniel Kaluuya to play an American. “I tend to wonder what that movie would have been with an American brother who really fells that”, Jackson told a New York radio station.
Some were quick to speak out against Jackson’s comments, including John Boyega the British actor who plays in recent Star Warms film. He called it “a stupid ass conflict we don’t have time for”.
Jordan Peele, the director of Get Out had at one time been adamant about casting an American Actor. He told The Guardian in 2017 that he “didn’t want to go with a British actor, because this movie was so much about representation of the African-American experience.” Yet, after Skyping with Kaluuya, Peele changed his mind. “Once I’d wrapped my head around how universal these themes were,” Peele said, “it became easy for me to pick Daniel, because, at the end of the day, he was the best person for the role.”
He understood the relevance of wanting to pick an actor who could pull from their own experience but ultimately changed his mind. In this case I don’t think you can argue that he should have been American because the creator of the film choose him specifically. If that’s who he thought was the best person for his movie then we don’t really have a say about that. But when it comes to films repeatedly choosing British black people to portray important historical figures in America, then I have to question/wonder why.
Ava DuVernay, who cast Brits to play both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King in Selma, also nodded to the U.K.’s penchant for the stage. “Their work is really steeped in theater. Our system of creating actors is a lot more commercial,” she told BuzzFeed in 2015. “There’s a depth in the character-building that’s really wonderful.”
DuVernay is not the only top African-American director who thinks the same way. In 2013, Spike Lee told the Guardian he wasn’t bothered by the trend of British actors taking American roles: “They’re well-trained. They came through on the stage not on a music video or whatever. So their acting’s impeccable and then they go into films.”
The perception that the Brits are better trained and skilled in acting has played in their advantage when going for African American roles. There even seems that there may be a preference for British talent because of their perceived skills. Even worse there might be a There definitely appears to be a pattern with Hollywood preferring them for these serious and big roles. The thought that African American actors can be seen as inferior to the British ones is what concerns me about this trend. Is there really no African-American’s that could have played these characters? African American actors are often forced to play stereotypes which can make it harder for them to get the more serious roles.
