Bryan Cranston is opening up about coming face to face with his own "white blindness" and privilege and how doing so led to him turning down a directing job.
In 2019 the actor was approached by Matt Shakman to direct a play he was developing that was based on Larry Shue's 1984 comedy "The Foreigner," which tells the story of how an Englishman who stops the Ku Klux Klan from meeting in a Georgia fishing lodge where he stays.
Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Cranston said that he eventually walked away from the offer because, after witnessing racial and social injustices including events like the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed, the play did not feel like an acceptable choice for him.
"It is a privileged viewpoint to be able to look at the Ku Klux Klan and laugh at them and belittle them for their broken and hateful ideology," Cranston told the outlet. "But the Ku Klux Klan and Charlottesville and white supremacists — that's still happening, and it's not funny. It's not funny to any group that is marginalized by these groups' hatred, and it really taught me something."
For years, Cranston said he had been laughing at the play but only later realized this was because of his white privilege.
"And I realized, Oh my God, if there's one, there's two, and if there's two, there are 20 blind spots that I have … what else am I blind to?" Cranston told the Los Angeles Times. "If we're taking up space with a very palatable play from the 1980s where rich old white people can laugh at white supremacists and say, 'Shame on you,' and have a good night in the theater, things need to change, I need to change."
So Cranston told Shakman he would not be taking the directing job. This opened a door for him to find meaningful work in the role of Charles Nichols in "Power of Sail," in which Cranston plays a respected Harvard professor facing controversy after inviting a white nationalist and Holocaust denier to speak at his annual symposium. The importance of such plays, Cranston said, is that they can challenge a person's way of thinking.
"A good play may not change your life, but it could change your day," he told the Los Angeles Times. "To go deeper, a play can also stimulate the mind. It can make you question your thought process — your dogma. It could challenge you."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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