Back in March, legendary actor #SamuelLJackson commented on #GetOut star #DanielKaluuya being a black British actor and how these actors in general seem to be taking jobs from African-American actors. “I know the young brother who’s in the movie, and he’s British,” Jackson said about Kaluuya. “There are a lot of black British actors that work in this country. All the time. I tend to wonder what would that movie have been with an American brother who really understands that in a way.”
Jackson went on to say that “some things are universal, but everything ain’t” as away to suggest that an African-American actor should have played that part since there’s no way that a black British man could wholly identify with the racial nuances that African-American would experience. He also said that British actors “think they’re better-trained, for some reason, than we are because they’re classically trained” and that he didn’t know “what the love affair is with all that.” Shade!
Anyway, five months have passed and #IdrisElba, who is perhaps, one of the world’s most renowned British actors, finally chimed in on Jackson’s comments and admits that he was disappointed by his words. “I was really disappointed in those comments,” Elba told #TheRoot. “We are dissected as a people; why dissect us any further as a comment that’s as stupid as that?”
He continued, “Black actors all over the world look at Samuel L. Jackson as a great actor that happens to black. The idea that he can dissect us into English actors that are black, stealing roles from American actors, is really ignorant and made of things that divide us instead of pulling us together.”
What are your thoughts, Roommates? Do you think that black British actors are qualified enough to play African-American characters?
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Source: http://thegrapevine.theroot.com/idris-elba-addresses-controversy-over-black-english-act-1797510353
