(no subject)

[camwyn]

Ever have one of those days when your brain is just sure you saw/heard/read about an actor in a particular role, only when you go to look up their career history, it's not only not there but you can't find anything that resembles that role?

I have no clue why my brain decided that Lawrence Fishburne had played the title role in Macbeth, but damn, I'd love to see him in it.

(I'd also love to see Keith Hamilton Cobb in Hamlet, but he's a little old for the title role and I'm not sure about him as Claudius- maybe Fortinbras instead. Or possibly as Creon in Antigone, I'd pay to see that.)

Comments

[ymfaery]

I was convinced Mark Harmon was in Remington Steele, but turns out it was John Read? The guy who starred in the North and South mini series with Patrick Swayze. They have slightly similar features so I could see how I made the mistake.

[tibicina]

I believe Laurence Fishburne was in a version of Othello. Perhaps you substituted 'important Shakespeare plays' in your memory. Other than the race, they're not entirely dissimilar roles.

[camwyn]

It's possible, although I seem to recall thinking that he had been in both Othello and Macbeth. The 'both' part is because Keith Hamilton Cobb has a one-man play, American Moor, which is about his own lifelong complicated relationship with Othello and being an actor and a black man in America. One of the things Mr. Cobb notes in the play is that sooner or later pretty much every single serious black actor in this country gets pointed at Othello, often as an alternative to whatever other Shakespeare part they might actually be interested in (he had wanted, for example, to play Romeo in a high school English class and the teacher straight up said 'why not Othello instead'). When it came to Mr. Fishburne, the feeling in my thoughts was that he had been in an unusual part in a critically important Shakespeare play.

It may also have been influenced by an odd Macbeth production I have on DVD which takes place in a semi-post-apocalyptic setting (Scotland's pretty post-apocalyptic, Macduff spends some time elsewhere in a thoroughly green and pleasant setting). Lennox in that version was played by Steve Toussaint, and stands out in my memory as the first time I have ever seen any Shakespeare play other than Othello go 'hey, how about we cast a black dude in one of the named parts?'. Lennox isn't a big part, but he's still a named character rather than a porter or a spear carrier or a gravedigger or something, and it may have been wishful thinking on my part to have Mr. Fishburne take that kind of casting up to the top level.

[tibicina]

Yeah. I've seen black actors on stage in other major Shakespearean roles, but film is harder to find. In part just because there are fewer films.

Though speaking of interesting casting choices, have you seen that Dev Patel is playing both David Copperfield and Sir Gawain this year?

[camwyn]

Oo, no, I hadn't seen that. This should be good.