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.
Williams played Lando Calrissian in 1980’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and reprised the role for 1983’s Return of the Jedi and 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker.
