In the year of our lord Cowboy Carter 2024, people should have binary opinions on blackface. It’s not a debate at this point, surely. You either think it’s great (and you’re an idiot) or you think it’s horrible (and you’re normal). Well, Billy Dee Williams was asked about blackface during an interview with Bill Maher of all people. Williams is promoting his memoir, What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life, and he appeared on Maher’s Club Random podcast. The conversation was about Bradley Cooper wearing that horrific fake nose to play Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, and then took a turn when discussing Laurence Olivier’s performance in Othello (for which Olivier wore blackface).
Billy Dee Williams said this week he believes actors should be allowed to do blackface, specifically praising Laurence Olivier’s performance in Othello.
“When he did Othello, I fell out laughing,” Williams said of Olivier on Sunday’s episode of Club Random With Bill Maher. In the 1965 film, Olivier wore blackface to play the film’s titular character. “He stuck his ass out and walked around because Black people are supposed to have big asses.”
Maher replied to Williams’ comment by saying, “Today, they would never let you do that.”
Williams then asked Maher, “Why?” to which Maher asked, in shock: “Blackface?”
“Why not? You should do it,” Williams said. “If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do.”
In response to his perspective, Maher pointed out that Williams, 87, “actually lived in a period where you couldn’t play the parts you should’ve played.”
“The point is,” Williams continued, “you don’t go through life feeling like, ‘I’m a victim.’ I refuse to go through life saying to the world, ‘I’m pissed off.’ I’m not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day.”
Williams and Maher’s conversation began with a mention of Bradley Cooper’s controversial prosthetic nose in last year’s Oscar-nominated Maestro. For his portrayal of legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein, Cooper donned a fake nose that some deemed antisemitic. “And Bradley Cooper thinks he’s got a problem with the nose,” Maher said of the debate, which was met with laughs from Williams.
“If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do.” That’s a very Scarlett Johansson-esque statement. Remember when she audaciously claimed that she should be able to play Japanese characters or trees or transgender people? Now, it’s different when it comes from Billy Dee, because he clearly thinks it’s funny to watch white actors make racist asses out of themselves. But it’s clear that he does believe actors should be able to do whatever they want. And I get that and it’s “fine” at a theoretical level (“actors can play any role”) but in practice, obviously, it’s full of huge political landmines and sensitivities.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.