*Billy Dee Williams rocked social media this week when he described himself using both male and female pronouns during a recent interview with Esquire magazine.
The 82-year-old actor suggested he was “gender fluid,” (someone who does not identify with gender), but now the Hollywood icon is setting a few things straight about his remarks.
“I never tried to be anything except myself. I think of myself as a relatively colorful character who doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously,” he told Esquire. “And you see I say ‘himself’ and ‘herself,’ because I also see myself as feminine as well as masculine. I’m a very soft person. I’m not afraid to show that side of myself.”
This statement led many to believe that Williams had come out as gender fluid, but the veteran actor insists he identifies strictly as a male.
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Well, isn’t this lovely @Official_MattM @RichterFit! Thank you @esquire for a wonderful walk down memory lane #russiantearoom #TheRiseOfSkywalker https://t.co/ra79G2L7CA
— Billy Dee Williams (@realbdw) November 27, 2019
Williams clarified his comments in an interview with Undefeated, stating he was simply noting the ways men can embrace their feminine side.
“Well, first of all, I asked last night. I said, ‘What the hell is gender fluid?’ That’s a whole new term,” Williams said. “But what I was talking about was about men getting in touch with their softer side of themselves. There’s a phrase that was coined by Carl G. Jung, who was a psychiatrist, who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, and they had a splitting of the ways because they had different ideas about the … what do you call it? Consciousness. Unconscious. It’s collective unconsciousness. But he coined a phrase that’s, ‘Anima animus.’ And anima means that is the female counterpart of the male self, and the animus is the male counterpart of the female. So that’s what I was referring to.”
It seems Williams had conflated gender fluid with what it means to be sexual fluidity.
“I was talking about men getting in touch with the female side of themselves. I wasn’t talking about sex, I wasn’t talking about being gay or straight,” he said. “People should read [Jung]. I mean, it would be an interesting education for a lot of people.”
In related news, Williams will return as Lando in the highly anticipated “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” for the first time since “Return of the Jedi” in 1983.
He shares with Undefeated how the role first came to him. Irvin Kershner, who directed “The Empire Strikes Back,” contacted Williams for what the actor recalls was an unusual meeting.
“It was unusual because I was asked to play the character and generally actors have to go to somebody’s office and sit and sweat out those little moments of whether they’re acceptable or not,” he said. “Irv Kershner came to my house, and we sat and talked about Eastern philosophy and a little bit of European Western philosophy, and we had a pretty good rapport. He liked me, and I liked him, and that’s pretty much how the whole thing happened.”
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” hits theaters Dec. 20.
You can read Williams’ full interview at Undefeated.
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