Preserving history and narrative truth

This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Moseley My guest today, actctor Wendell Pierce is taking on a part he's wanted to play for years. Shakespeare's Othello, one of the most demanding roles ever written for the stage classic is a story of a celebrated military leader who is slowly manipulated into doubting his own wife until jealousy and deception consume him Perce is known to many as Detective Buck Morland on the Wire and Antoine Bapiste on HBO's Treme on Broadway He became the first black actor to play Willy Lowman in Death of a salesman earning a twenty twenty three Tony nomination for the role His range these days runs just as wide, a police captain on CBS's Elsbeth, a CIA officer in Jack Ryan Ghost War, and a villain in raising Canan on stars. He plays othello at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, DC until june twenty eighth Wwindell Pierce, welcome to fresh air. Thank you for having me, Tona. Okay, so We arere talking just a few hours before you go on stage there in DC as Othello. And what is your head like a few hours before you take on this role Oh, what It's really rest and relaxation because I have a u a couple of hours, uh, that I have to prepare for. But I try to relax and warm up and Myind body and spirit prepare for the journey You know, I always think of these uh These roles, you know, these iconic roles and large roles. like the beginning of a hike up Mount Everest so I'm at base cabinet this time of the day That's a good that's a good analogy or metaphor whatever you want to call it because I mean this Role you've said has challenged you like few ever have. What is it about Othello Well, first of all, just the playwright himself, Mr. William Shakespeare is a great challenge You know, I try to to the trifector, as I call it do television and film and theater. every year, you know, the great Tifecta and all of the different mediums But I think I'm going to expand that to quartet because I would like to do a Shakespeare every year if I can, because first of all, the textive work I call it of mining the text for all of its understanding everything that Shakespeare was is telling you not only about the characters, but how to portray them and what's happening. And that's with in the verse and the Aambic pentameter, but it's also in the onamonopa of The words sounding like what they are in the monosyllabic. words denoting a slower pace and the opposite being true, multiyllabic words, a faster pace That's just the technical aspect of doing a classical text like that. And then you have the emotional work that you have to do U within the connection with the other actors and characters and the love that I have for Desdem Mona and actually the discovery in this role is the love that I have for Iaga which has been key. opening up Ofello for me. Normally he is just seen as the villain and manipulated by Iago, but actually he is that is a part of the love story too. He is in my interpretation. he is the The person that I've known and loved and trusted all of my life because I'm orphaned I am an outsider and I'm orphaned since a small child. and So you build that up and then you have to have the physical and then the vocal strength for three hour production. So the challenge is physical, it's intellectual and it's emotional you mentioned a little bit ago that You do a trifecta every year that Is that an intentional thing that' you're making for yourself? This year, I'm going to make sure I'm doing one of these three things, now the fourth one, making sure that you do a Shakespeare play. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm in the third act of my career. I think, you know, and challenging myself. is not just to go from job to job, but be intentional the jobs I take. and And I try to plan out the year that way. I still have to hope that someone hires me to do it and I have to be good enough to get the auditions and get the offers and all. And And then also just as an actor, you want to be as diverse as possible And I want it and that's been The reason I've been able to have a forty year career is working in New York and Los Angeles. and doing television, doing film, doing theater, as many different places. I've produced play in Uganda. in Kampala, Uganda, at the National Theater there. I tried to make it as diverse as possible. and it's a great challenge and that's what the journey is all about I'm hearing the words you're saying, Wendell, but I saw all the things that you're doing right now and I thought, Wha, I mean This is like Th you're doing more in a year than many people do in five years. It seems like as you get older, you're almost riding yourself even harder Well, you know, that ticking clog of immortality kind of helps. You want to build a body of work, you want to you know, subconsciously I probably is a part of it But also it's not all at the same time. you know, rightight now Jack Ryan Ghost Warars out, but that was last summer in spring when we shot that in Dubai in London. And then Elsbeth just ended the season. We do that during the course of a regular television season from September to March. And now while I'm doing that, I was planning out Othello for as soon as we got finished to do to come to Washington DC and do a fellow here. I'm and then rais in Canan. we had already shot that prior to last year, It' been in the cann for like a year. So it's all fortunate that they're all coming out at the same time. So it seems like I'm doing them at the same time. But I break, but you know, all these jobs an actors's life is in Well, I've discovered they're kind of in quarters of the year, you know, first, second, third, fourth quarter. And that's how I think of my planning. Be we work in three month periods, you know, a play in three months, you know a full season of television is maybe six months so and a film is three months You're constantly planning and it's constantly changing. but I'm a journeyman actor. and some people say I shouldn't say that, but I actually embrace that. That's something that is I wear with pride. I love to call myself a journeyman. Is there a stigma to being a journeyman actor? Some people think so. They say Oh Wendell, you shouldn't say that, man. you know, you've established yourself in in the industry as someone significant, you know I guess people are thinking of some star system or whatever. And I said, you know, there there's the joke that we have as actors is of the five stages of your career There's, Wh is Wendell Pierce Get me, Wendell Piers getet me someone like Wendell Pice. Get me a younger windel pierce and then the last and final and fifth stages Who is Wendell Pierce? So So you're racing against not being who is Wendndell Pice to that stage, right? Y Yes Do you have a Favorite scene from Othello Oh no I have favorite o toooo many. It's so rich Um, You know, what's interesting is Justimona and Othello Don't have any love scenes They literally do not have any love scenes. And it's one of the things that I really love about our production that in the midst of Scenes of strife of conflict Of war I we find the moments to show our love for each other But u You know, the first time is they're going to war and I have to say, this is why I married her. This is what the intention is. I talk about, I love her. And then I get to war. I say get to Cyprus and I realize that she's there. and I go, thank God, you know, I've made it through it. But what is normally a rousing beach of on the on the battlefront. I I make it into a declaration of love to Desdemona because she's there and present. And I don't care what others around me at this time and moment are saying. And you know, I say if it were now to die, it were now to be most happy. You know, I cannot speak enough of this content. It stops me here It is too much of joy, and I'm only talking about her And it's normally played as you know, I made it through the battle and I made it here. And all you guys are here and I happen to have my wife too, and it's a really wonderful thing. We've done it. The war is done, you know. And I'm like, no, it's a love scene Weindell I'm noticing them in your work you're drawn to roles that that take you somewhere dark and deep. And of course O feellow does that And so did Willy Lowan, which you played back in twenty twenty two when you became the first black actor to play him in Death of a salesman on Broadway He is an aging traveling salesman chasing success. He really wants to be well liked. How did you find your way into Willie Loman The first man I thought of was my father Uh, My father U was had a great work ethic. He was a man, very very simple laborer. U who had Wanderless. they love to travel Um, He kind of instilled that in us. They said you can be whatever you want to be. uh, and he also warned us that there are going to be people who will do everything possible that you won't succeed. And so it was always there that I started to think of Willie Loman And what is so tragic about Willie Lowan is for men like that the American dream was still something that was denied them at every step of the way. We achieved part of the American dream But It was through u an extreme difficulty And that's what, u then and that could that can break people That can destroy people's Psyche? and destroy their heart destroy their mental facility. And I think that's what happened with Willie Lomman. Right? because he was a black man in America that love the country, that love the economic ethos and idea of the American dream. But then that dream was a nightmare for him. He was placed in his expectations far out lasted and grew far past what was available to him. and out of that desperation, he destroyed himself and he destroyed his family. You know, that's what's so powerful about you playing this character. because I think that the whole premise, the idea of death of a salesman, it is something that everyone can sort of connect to, especially as an American here Aolly. But there's another layer there when you add on you and your identity as a black Yeah, it's a black man in America I mean, because what happens is there are people that came to the play that thought we rewrote the play They said, you can't change that. A producer actually came to me Uh, just with great concern. L like, wait, you change, you can't You can't say there's the scene where Willie Lowan is caught infidelity the woman in the hotel by his son It is the moment that broke all of their lives. And I told her, listen, go into the bathroom you know and be quiet. there may be a law against this. Right? and In our production, I'm having an affair with a white woman. and it's nineteen thirty seven, I think it was And we're in this hotel. Uh, and, uh She is you know, scantily clothed and there's a knocking on the door and I'm thinking it's someone Uh, that expose our infidelity. And I say, you know, there may be a law against this. And I'm thinking of the laws that were of the time that literal laws of, you know, you could not marry, you could not be together in an interracial relationship. And then there was the time that so many black men were lynched because they were caught with a white woman is one of the most dangerous things that can ever happen. It was the time of thecottsboro boys. It was the time, you know of danger. And Actually the producer thought we put it in there Right? And I said no, that's in the play because actually the law at the time was no unmarried couple could be in a hotel together And that's the law that they were thinking of that in Boston at this time, you know, was you're not supposed to be in a hotel together unless you're married. you know, There may be a law against this. And that that simple line rang out like something you had had never heard before. It felt different. R. Itelt different. Yep. The last time that I spoke with you, We were in the pandemic and you were spending a lot of time with your dad during that time. It was like twenty twenty one. And since then he has passed away and I just want to offer my condolences first off. M, thank you. than you. I have my dad He was two months away from his ninety ninth birthday I literally he he passed u U, um in my hands, you know, we were holding hands. I was there with him. And so I I had my father for a long time and those last years. I spent I got closer to my father in the last ten years of his life than I' ever had before. My mother passed and one of her dying wishes was, Weell, takeake care of your father. rightight? She knew you know, while I was working in Budapest, if I got four days off, I would go home to New Orleans and spend time with him. It was it was a blessing. I was traveling the world and being an actor and at the same time, my home base is New Orleans and here I would have my father with me for all those years. and he was He was fuel to my fire you know, he was reminding me of everything that he taught me. And as I as I attack these challenges of these great roles and the different roles that I play, you know, he is very much Um in my process. This is a man who fought in SaipPan in World War two You know and came back and was not his voting rights weren't even protected. And here he was risking his life in the WoubleV campaign in the black community, victory abroad and victory at home. So he very much believed in that There's a There's actually a moving speech that you gave the opening night of death of a salesman where You're paying tribute to your father and He was actually in the audience at the time. and I want to play some of it. Let's listen to a little bit When this play was written, a young man K from New Orleans. to u So be a photographer He decided to go home and raise his three boys. in New Orleans One of which is me fought for this country and loved it when it didn't love him back but he gave me the most precious thing ever L And time That was my guest, Wendell Pierce on opening night of Death of a salesman. And at that moment when you say he gave me time, you You hold up a time piece and you walk off the stage and you present it to your dad. And that was The time piece Pocket watchatch from the Pay that you see Willie Loman receive from his brother U it is and I presented it to him And I knew in that moment was probably the last time he would ever see me on stage And, uh I just wanted to honor him. Our guest today is actor Wendell Peerce. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tona Moseley, and this is fresh air You know, I'm thinking about how you say that you got into the character, Willy Loman by Really thinking about the journey of your father and That story you told in your speech just then for openping night was a revelation to you that your father was a young photographer right around the time Death of a salesman was going out into the world because your dad for the longest time, you thought he didn't want this life of a creative for you. You thought he wanted you to be kind of traditional man, a lawyer or a doctor, something safe He he was, u Oh man, I went to a very good school, very great college preparatory school. Ben Franklin is the number one high school in Louisiana It's, you know all these great national merit scholars and people with scholarships and going to Ivy Leagues and great careers And he just when I decided early on, in the middle of that, I wanted to be an actor at fourteen, going to this other great school, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. I had the best of both worlds Um Oh, he was so adamantly against it. he wass like, let your mama take you to all that stuff. I'm not I'm not gonna do it, but he stuck to his guns His principle was you do what you want to do but give a hundred percent. And so he was adamantly against it. thenen my brother made me remember Uh that my father was a photographer And he said, I want Dadd's pictures, you know, If anything ever happens, I want daddy's pictures. I said, what pictures? And he showed me these pictures from an art exhibit my father had done when he had studied as a photographer. And he went to New York. I knew he had gone to New York to study photography because that was a trade back in the day. We didn't have our phones and instematic cameras, you went to a photography studio and got your pictures taken So so when the instamatic camera came out, actually an entire industry went away Because a photographer was like like a grocer or a dry cleaner you know, The family got together, they went to the photography studio and they took pictures. And that's what he was expecting to do. And that's what I thought he was training to do when I realize he had Artistic vocation being a photographer like Roy De Carvar or James Vandery and all of these wonderful photographers when I saw these from his exhibit. So It was a dream deferred for him So a part of his pushback on my wanting to be an actor wasas his desire as a father. not to see his son G through the hurt and the disappointment that he had gone through And so that's why he tried to steer me away from being an actor early on when I was in high school You went on to study at Juilliard, which you have said is kind of the most terrifying experience of your life. You made it through there. you could make it through anywhere. but there's this other story you tell that you've told many times, but we got to hear it here, your most memorable audition. You had just graduated from Juilliard. You're in front of Bob Vossey. Oh wow. yeah, that audition I consider one of the highlights of my career. And it was for the big deal Broadway and I went in and I had come up with they had already started play about a boxer who is being manipulated by the mob and he's throwing fights and he takes his life back. He goes, listen All right, this is it. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm taking my life back And so he explodes in the middle of in this one scene. And so I was going into audition. They had already started rehearsal and, uh On the break, I was going to go in and do my audition. So as the doors open and they're coming out for a break, I run into the room and I said, All right, listen up everybody This is what's gonna happen. I'm taking my life back and I go into the scene Everybody stops like, who is this crazy guy Um They say, okay, okay. All right Everybody go on break Bob Farsy clears the room He says, okay Now do it The stage manager is fumbling, trying to find the scene. I say, All right everybody, this is it. I'm taking my life back U He goes, stop, stop, stop. The stage manager was lost. He says, he turns to the pianist and he goes, give me an F vamp. B Pong D't Bump. Bump, bump. Then he says, giveive me the script And he says, Okaykay, start. And I said, All right, everybody, this is's going grow. I'm taking my life back. And he reads the scene with me. No, you aren't. you're still gonna do what we say. I said, No, it's gonna go this way. Bump, bump. And he circles me. And we read the scene together. and at the end he goes, Oh You're good But you're too young You're too young A man, but I want to work with you. He calls my agent. My agent calls me and says What did you do today? Bob Foss, he called and said, he's going to work with you this year. I said, Oh my God, that's great. But you're too young for this, but he's going to find something, he's going to work with you this year Later that year I'm in the hotel room and I see Bob Fossy's picture comes up And they say, ladies and gentlemen, Bob Fossey died today. And I was like, Bob man, I was going to work with him, I was going to work with him. And then I had the epiphany did work with him. H I did. We did a scene together, had the music behind it. We read it It was great. We had an audience of one But I did work with Bob Fossey And that's when I realized An audition is an opportunity to share your work. You're not asking for a job. You're saying, this is what I would do with this role. This is what this play is about. This is what this film is about and just go and do the work It's opening and closing night, and that's it. And if something comes out of it, the job itself or whatever, then that's then you get to continue to do the work. But that's my Bob Fossy story What a confident young man you were. I'm taking my life back. Yes If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Wendall Pierce. He's starring as the title character in Shakespeare's Ophello We'll continue our conversation after a short break This is fresh air. You know, Wendell, um so Many of the men you play are holding on to dignity within systems who don't fully see them. It seems to be kind of like the through line that I see with so many of the characters you play. and I want to talk for just a moment about Morlin from the Wire. in a lot of ways, Anyone who's seen the show knows it, but I mean, he was the conscience of the show. He took so much pride in his job, even inside of this department that made it kind of hard. And I want to play a scene That comes after a shootout. It's where one of the women in Omar's crew has been shot dead in the street and now Omar, who is played by the late Michael K Williams, is this fierce kind of stick up man who robbs high end drug dealers, and Bunk is investigating that killing. and he pulls Omar aside to this quiet, deserted spot and they have this moment We're about to play. Let's listen I was a few years ahead of you at Edmundson But I know you remember the neighborhood, how it was We had some bad boys for real It wasn't about guns so much as knowing what to do with youro hands. Those boys could really raack My father hadad me on the street But like any young man, I want to be hard too So I would turn up at all the house parties with the tough boys, huh Yeah, they knew I wasn't one of them cases would come up to me and say, goo home, school boy, you don't belong here I didn't realize at the time what they were doing for me rough as that neighborhood could be We had us a community. noody, no victim. who didn't matter Now all we got is bodies and predatory like you. And now where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar calling you by name, glorifying your makes me sick how far weed don't fail Hm, I just want to listen to the rest of the show right now. That was my guess Weindell Peerce and the Wire. Weell it is it true that There was actually a turning point during the height of the success of this show, when you thought about leaving it? Yes Yes, u There came a point someone during the course of the war, people would challenge us all the time, know You are only demonstrating the thugggery and the crime. and you're perpetuating this idea that the stereotype that black folks are criminally inclined and violent and all I remember a woman on the train challenging me, an African American woman who worked on Wall Street. and I said, I accept your criticism. We should never lose the ability to be offended. never lose that ability. So I welcome the challenge and that's and the criticism, so I can make sure that We don't fall victim to that criticism I said, but We have judges. mayor, the president of the city council, the city council members, police officers, lawyers, doctors teachers who are all African American, but you're only seeing the criminals Imagine how tough it is for a little kid in those neighborhoods They don't see the lawyers or the doctors If you don't see them as an educated woman, a professional, and you can only see the thuggery Imagine how susceptible those young kids are to it. And that's what we're trying to tell and the story we're trying to tell. Now in the fourth season, I almost quit because at our rap party, a young lady comes up to me and she says, Oh, Mr. Pierce I was on the show this year. I really wanted to work with you. I didn't get we didn't have anything together. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your work and all. And you know, this is my only time being on the wire. and I'm going to Brown, I think she was going to on a full scholarship. And I said, Wh did you play And she says, I look younger than I am So I was one of the kids in the middle school. and I said, Oh. and then she described the character that she played was this out of control young woman who slashes another girl's face. Oh I know O something trivia. And I say, wait a minute, you played that? She said yes. I shouldn't What do you do in life? Where are you going? She was like, I'm going to Brown University on full scholarship. And I thought to myself, whyy are we not telling your story? Why are we not telling your story? And I thought about the criticism. And I said, that woman was right And I said, I should leave the show because we're perpetuating a stereotype And then the episode came on for the fourth season And it was so impactful. And we see exactly where we lose our kids And we see that inflection point where We can save them and put them on the right track and where we can make them the young woman who goes to Brown on a full scholarship and where we lose them and send them into that pipeline into the penal system And then I said, okay is not arbitrary That's the role we're playing on the wire. We are cautionary tale We are, as Shakespeare said, holding a mirror up to nature and callalling our dysfunction out in our society that creates the criminality, that doesn't celebrate the education of this young woman going to school and all So it wasn't arbitrary. and then that's the only thing that made me come back Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Wendell Peerce. He's starring in the title role of Shakespeare's Othello at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, DC. We'll be right back after a break. This is fresh air You know, I think anybody who knows you or even knows just a little bit about you knows that you are from New Orleans. You rep it very hard. And you grew up in Ponta Train Park New Orleans U It sounds so idllic. You had a pretty idyllic childhood, it sounds like It was. I called C punch train park, the black Mayberry You know. it grew out ofh the civil rights movement. There was so many prohibitions where blacks could not participate in the expansion of post World War II. Um, you know, suburbia. And There was a movement to make sure that black folks had access to homes and all and Punch Train Park came out of sort of an appeasement separate but equal, adjacent to Gently Woods, which was a Uh, white neighborhood with the covenant of bllacks couldn't move in. And they set aside another two hundred acres and replicated that neighborhood in Punet Trae Park. But right in the middle of it, Joseph Bartholomew designed a golf course a little municipal golf course. And Joseph Bartholomew was an African American landscape architect who designed most of the courses in New Orleans at the time but couldn't play on them So it was, uh It was the ying and yang of fighting the ignorance of Jim Crow segregated New Orleans, but at the same time creating pockets of idyllic U commommunities and Punchet Train Park was one of them lawers and doctors and teachers and janits and The glass manan, mister Wagner was a glass man. and mister Greenwood was the dry cleaner. So it was economic development and everybody's your mother and father and the playground there at Southern University at New Orleans had a black historic college right in the neighborhood. so it was really, really idyllic. Yeah. so many memories with you and your mom and your dad, your mom who was a school teacher, your siblings. And she talked two blocks from two blocks from our home at Tockill Elementary school whereer I went to elementary school And for years, I was just known as Mrs. Pierce's son because she was so beloved in the neighborhood and she was a part of a community. What was that like for you? What was that like for you though to be a child of a school teacher? Well, it was All of our teachers live in a neighborhood too. so the worst part about it is, you know, I would come home from school or come home from the playground and my mother is sitting there with my second grade teacher and my third grade teacher and my fourth grade teacher. And you know, and they're having their cocktails after work. you know, so every all of my teachers I would see on a regular basis. You can get away with my mom. I couldn't get away with anything But it was great, you know, it was great community and was totally destroyed by Katrina, onene of the deepest parts of the flooding and And I knew how it was first built. the civic advocacy that constructed Punchet Traine Park and the civil rights movement led by AP. Turo, one of the great civil rights lawyers of New Orleans and my parents' generation, so, I put out a clarion call to our generation after Katrina saying We owe it to them You know We owe it to them to rebuild it. And so we have rebuilt it Our neighborhood, brick by brick, block by block, house by house in Punure Chain Park is back. I led an effort and we rebuilt forty homes And And that's where I live to this day. I'm still there in Pasure Train Park You wrote this book out of that devastation The wind in the Reeds in twenty fifteen. I mean, it's a memoir, but it also is this this love letter to New Orleans that's so descriptive about your childhood, but then just about the city and the history. And there's a particular moment You say Decades from now, little kids will ask, mis. Pierce, what did you know about New Orleans Darkest hour And you will tell them. That got me thinking about This quote that I'm kind of obsessed with right now from Brian Stevenson, where he said that basically Our ancestors fought for freedom, our parents fought for civil rights, and our generation struggle is a narrative one honest accounting of what actually happened. And reading your book, I just felt echoes of that. I wonder what how you feel about that idea because you're just so intentional in making sure that this story, particularly about New Orleans and Katrina stays alive It is the most important thing we have right now in our time and our generation People are actively trying to erase Wh who we are as a people, I am only minutes away from the Pentagon as I speak right now And I remember my father admiring General Chappy James, Benjamin Chappy James, and to know that they just removed his painting. From the Pentagon And whatever reason they come up with we all know the reason. It's just racist and the idea of trying to eliminate any sort of contributions that the African American community has made to this country in the year that we try to celebrate two hundred fifty It is so insulting. It is so aggressively it it feels like a visceral attack My brother was purged out of his job here and in Washington, D.C. I' had no so many people and it and it's so many black women in particular, this attack on minorities and women in in a world where we are trying to where people are trying to erase them, we realize that that is our call to duty of our generation, which is we know now that we have to markck our passing on the tree and declare who we are, who we were, what our accomplishments are. and have been And what we have created exercise our right of self determination and declaration Of A accomplishment We owe that to our ancestors. We owe that to the generations yet to come becausecause they're those who do not have our best interest at hearts Wendell Piers, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I really appreciate it Wendell Pier stars in Othello at the Shakespeare Theatater Company in Washington, D.C Tomorrow on fresh air, the rise of masculinism How the movement, which is now mainstream aims to fight feminism and restore the primacy of men. We speak with Helen Lewis, who writes about the movement in the Atlantic I hope you can join us To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air res execut producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phllis Myyers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krinel, Theeresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challiner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Baumman, and Nico Gonzalees Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV. Nesper. Roberta Shherock directs the show With Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Moseley