*Actor OT Fagbenle who stars in Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the new film “Black Widow” which hits theaters Friday, July 9 and Showtime’s “The First Lady” joined SiriusXM Urban View’s The Karen Hunter Show.
During the interview the actor spoke to host Karen Hunter and co-hosts about turning down a previous opportunity to play an African-American icon, but taking on the role as Barack Obama in the Showtime series “The First Lady”, was because he felt he could relate to Obama’s character personally, and spoke about working with Viola Davis who plays Michelle Obama:
“I do think for me personally, Barack is someone who has an African father, who lived abroad in multiple countries as a youth, I feel that I genuinely come from as a person, someone who can really relate to that story.”
“I was doing Obama last week with queen V, queen Viola. Let me tell you something about Viola Davis.. she’s amazing. Oh my god. She’s playing Michelle Obama..I don’t really look like Barack, but the point is it’s about capturing the spirit. If you want to see Obama go on YouTube. I think our job as actors is to try and embody a spirit..Anyway, the point is about Viola. She’s so good, but also she’s political. We’d get into the chats, we get into philosophy, politics. She’s so well-read, she’s so knowledgeable. I just wanted to say, I love that woman and she’s everything.
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OT Fagbenle also spoke about working with Elisabeth Moss in “The Handmaid’s Tale” and when Host, Karen Hunter asked the actor what it’s like being in scenes with her, and if she makes him better, he responded “Hell yeah. She doesn’t just make you better when you’re in a scene with her, she’s made me better over the years watching her. The people you hang out with, are the people you’re gonna be most like, and so I’ve learned so much from her. The funny thing is I didn’t know who I was dealing with really. It wasn’t until the first season and we had just done the first couple scenes together and I was like, she’s real. So I said to her, I said, ‘you’re really good.’ And she said, ‘yeah, yeah I am.’ She was being funny. She’s got a funny sense of humor, but at the same time she knows. She’s just so good.”
Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Co-host asked O.T.: “I look at how you guys made the progression into going to Gilead. When do you think you guys should have left? At one point in the history of it, do you think, you know, when the credit cards stopped, when women couldn’t work anymore? For me, I was like, when they started shooting the protestors, that’s when y’all should have left. But do you think about that ever?”
OT Fagbenle replied: “Yeah, but it’s a really interesting question about when do you leave and when do you fight? And I think, when I look back, I feel like the first mistake is that there wasn’t enough resistance. It was people like Luke’s character that was like, yeah, it will change, that really paved the way for that kind of regime. So I would like the takeaway for people to be that we must engage ourselves actively, particularly in local politics to make the changes that we want to see. I think running away should be a last minute option.”
source/credit: SiriusXM Urban View’s The Karen Hunter Show.
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