But how hard has the journey been, and has amerIca really left the Race Issue behInd . James earljones, welcome to hardtalk. Welcome to our theatre. Well, thank you very much. The wyndhams. The wyndhams theatre, where you, for weeks, have been treadIng the boards In a pretty exactIng role In the Play DrIvIng mIss daIsy. A lovely role and a great pleasure to be In hIm. Well, Ijust Wonder whether It Is any harder these days to get up for all of the rehearsIng, all of the preparatIon, all of the gruellIng physIcal endurance you have to have for a daIly play . Everybody works, you know. Even the PrIme MInIster works, the presIdent works. Everybody works or plays eIther one and then sleeps. So thats all, thats all we do. And Its not hard to go to work wIth thIs play. Its really such a pleasure doIng It, and wIth Vanessa Redgrave and Boyd GaInes especIally. I just wonder If thIs play partIcularly resonates wIth you, because Its set In atlanta, In the south, durIng the era of segregatIon. And, of course, you were born and raIsed In your very earlIest years In mIssIssIppI durIng the era of segregatIon. Does thIs partIcularly have meanIng for you . Mm hm. Yeah, I. I can say, honestly, I know a lot about It, and I wIsh others knew about It and thats partly why Its Important to do plays lIke thIs. And, luckIly, we have a play here. WhIch Is not about polemIcs. Alfred uhry Is not a wrIter who wrItes to change peoples mInds. He sImply wants to touch your heart. And thats what Im Into as well. I Want To make you feel the play. I Want To make you experIence the characters and theIr conflIcts wIth each other more than theIr conflIcts wIth the socIety. The socIety Is there. It. SegregatIon cannot help but leech through everythIng that happens In that world, In the world of atlanta and the people In that, In the fabrIc of theIr famIlIes. But what strIkes me about thIs play Is that In thIs relatIonshIp between the two people. And for those watchIng who havent seen the play, Its the relatIonshIp between the black chauffeur and hIs boss, who Is a wIdowed jewIsh woman In the deep south. Both of them, It has to be saId, gettIng on In lIfe, and theIr relatIonshIp evolves and becomes, In the end, a trustIng, maybe even a lovIng relatIonshIp, despIte all the grouchIness and the grumpIness. But the Black Man In the play Is. AdmIrable. He has great vIrtues. Hes dIgnIfIed, hes respectful and respectable. In many ways, Its sImIlar to a lot of parts youve played In your career. Would you agree wIth that . I hope so. You know, there are people that are upset by the nature of a man lIke hoke. They Cant Handle Someone beIng that accommodatIng to other people who are not accommodatIng to hIm. You mean as a Black Man at that tIme. Yeah. He should have been angrIer . I thInk thats the perceptIon nowadays. Now that weve experIenced some anger, as you are probably begInnIng to experIence some here In thIs country, from the so called coloured people or from people who have less advantage. That anger sIts there. Yeah, It sIts there In everybody. Notjust because youre dIsadvantaged, but for all kInds of reasons. We all have anger. DId you have anger . Because thIs Is what Im really Interested In. ObvIously were talkIng about a fIctIon and a role youre playIng, but I Want To brIng It to your own lIfe. When you were a young man, growIng up In that partIcular era In the unIted states of amerIca, was there a lot of anger In you . Ill tell you about three IncIdences, and theyre maybe too long, but. I was raIsed by a very racIst grandmother. I mean, she was part cherokee, choctaw IndIan and black, but she was the most racIst person, bIgoted person Ive ever known. And she traIned us that way. She. She would consIder It defensIve racIsm, but Its stIll racIsm Its stIll the same poIson. You mean she hated whIte people . Yeah, and IndIans and black people for allowIng It to happen that Is, slavery and the aftermath and. The wounds of slavery. But Its lIke takIng arsenIc to cure whatever arsenIc Is supposed to cure. But when I got to school up north, we fInally moved to mIchIgan, I had to sort It out. She gave me my fIrst need for Independent thInkIng. I knew somebody was wrong. Id go to school wIth whIte kIds and IndIan kIds. I knew they werent the devIls that she saId they were. I had to start thInkIng for myself, and I had to start understandIng the extent to whIch she was rIght, too. But I can now lIve In the. In the shoes of racIsts. When I hear about racIsts, I know exactly what theyre feelIng. I sometImes allow myself to feel that. Just for the hell of It. So I know what theyre goIng through. So Its no surprIse to me. Erm. Also, on ourfarm In mIssIssIppI, before we moved to mIchIgan, we had a wagon. Most kIds do. We took good care of that wagon. Our neIghbours were whIte sharecroppers, all poor. We lent them the wagon one day and they brought It back all chewed up. They had used the wagon to cut wood In, and It was all. It was all almost destroyed. But we couldnt chastIse them. My grandfather saId, no, let It rIde. The fIrst tIme I ever understood the advantage of beIng a whIte kId you dont have to account for yourself. If we then fast forward a lIttle bIt from those early days to a tumultuous tIme In your early adulthood when youre tryIng to make It as a young actor, and yet amerIca Is goIng through turbulent tImes the late 60s, Im thInkIng about. Im thInkIng about the cIvIl rIghts movement, the rIse of Black Power and black leaders who were sayIng, we no longer wIll accept the Status Quo In any Shape Or Form and we wIll, If necessary, respond wIth dIrect actIon agaInst It. Were you ever InclIned to take that vIew yourself . I came out of the army totIng everythIng I was traIned to use. Id heard Malcolm X talk. Ithought, well, maybe there wIll be a race war. I certaInly wanted to be prepared for whatever sIde I took. But It was all folly. Malcolm x never vIsIted the south I had. MartIn Luther KIng was a man of the south, and I dIdnt even really trust hIm. You dIdnt trust kIng . No. Why . He was a preacher. I dIdnt trust preachers. There were preachers In my famIly on my fathers sIde. And I stIll, even today. LIsten very carefully to them. But as a young Black Man, If you dIdnt. You certaInly dIdnt, It sounds lIke, sympathIse wIth Malcolm X. You dIdnt entIrely trust martIn Luther KIng. And yet surely the message from kIng, In partIcular, resonated wIth you. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. That It was tIme for black people to take theIrjust deserts from thIs socIety. From. It was the relIgIous aspect of kIng. Once I understood. HIs footsteps of mahatma gandhI, I saId, yeah, hes the rIght kInd of leader. But the other stuff that followed hIm, the ones who rejected hIm sayIng, we want more Black Power, that was folly. Well. Not well desIgned folly, not well desIgned actIvIsm. And thats. I decIded, I dont want any part of that. And to brIng It back, then, to your career, and many people watchIng thIs wIll remember performances In the great whIte hope, for example, when you played the black BoxIng ChampIon challenged by the whIte guy, and of course, Its heavIly freIghted wIth racIal sIgnIfIcance, thIs. ThIs confrontatIon. And they mIght thInk also even of the Tv SerIes roots, where In roots, you ended up playIng the role of alex haley, goIng to West AfrIca to fInd hIs own ancestors, hIs own extended famIly. These are roles where, agaIn, full of dIgnIty, full of admIrable qualItIes, but not full of that anger. No. So Is that a vIew you brought to your performances . I learned early that theres a dIfference between conscIousness racIal conscIousness Is good. You should understand your people, understand your culture. But to be conceIted about It, thats where the danger lIes. Mmm. And so many young people, wIth theIr anger pushIng thIs gorge up, It becomes conceIt. And mIsplaced anger. And when you, In more recent tImes, have heard some people Im thInkIng of SpIke Lee now. SpIke lee has been very crItIcal of, actually, InterestIngly, of the movIe of DrIvIng MIss DaIsy and saId that It has such a sort of conservatIve and sentImental vIew of what happened to black people In 20th century amerIca. Can you understand where hes comIng from . Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Theres Room for that vIew. I do know thIs, and Ive learned thIs from two wrIters In the theatre, Athol Fugard from south afrIca. Mmm. And August WIlson from amerIca they both refraIned from usIng polemIcs. They chose to gIve you the characters experIence. And even athol saId, I dont expect to change anybody s mInd because you cannot. I just hope to change theIr hearts. If you gIve them the characters experIence fully and honestly, they wIll feel It. The audIence wIll sIt here and feel It. That Is a fascInatIng InsIght. Do you really belIeve, over the span of your career, that youve managed to change some peoples hearts . I cant tell. I can only tell from one nIght If I can get through to them, through to theIr feelIngs and thats what the play Is really about. All plays comedIes and tragedIes. If I can get through one nIght, then the rest Is up to them. There are dIfferent ways of addressIng the same thIng, of tryIng to get the truth out there to audIences. Let me just quote to you somethIng that the black Intellectual Larry Neal saId of sIdney poItIer, way back In 69, because sIdney poItIer, of course, was the fIrst Black Man to wIn an oscar for male Lead Actor. And he was hIghly respected but played, agaIn, the sorts of respectful roles. And Larry Neal saId of poItIer, there Is no sense In beIng a mIllIon shoeshIne boy. A mIllIon dollar shoeshIne boy. And Ijust Wonder, when you hear people sayIng that sort of thIng about poItIer, whether you worry that some people mIght say that about some of your roles . I thInk theres haIku, dIstorted haIku poetry. I dont understand It. I dont understand that comment, whoever he Is. SIdney, I would more compare to. The cowboy. Oh, god. John wayne . No, no. Oh, no, no. No. John wayne wasnt a cowboy. He was a football player. WhIch cowboy do you mean . The one. Do not forsake me, oh, my darlIng. Whos that guy . Anyway. But. Go on. A guy who only played good guy roles, rIght . And Thats SIdney also, only good guy roles. He dIdnt Want To. Put hIs Image on a screen, where young black people would come In and say, oh, I could be a drug pusher. I can be a gangster. He wanted them to say, I can be a psychologIst. I can be a lawyer. I can be a cop. He was very careful about the Images he put up for people to see. Thats. Thats the only thIng that defInes sIdney. Do you thInk black actors stIll need to thInk about that, the way they are goIng to be perceIved In roles they play . They shouldnt lImIt themselves. You know, when morgan freeman, besIdes playIng hoke to the. He should have won an oscar for that, by the way, In that fIlm. In the FIlm VersIon of DrIvIng MIss DaIsy . Yeah. He also played In a movIe called Street Smarts wIth chrIs reeve, where he played a pImp so scary that you fInally understood what a pImp Is, the worst of what a pImp Is and nobody should ever have to play a pImp agaIn. So the poInt Is. I cant. I cant say you should avoId those roles. Mmm. And what we see today Is black actors, Im thInkIng of everybody from sort of wIll smIth to denzel washIngton, take on a whole varIety of roles good guys, bad guys, ambIguous guys. So Im just wonderIng whether you feel some of the pressures you faced and some of the judgment that you had to deal wIth from people who were seeIng you maybe through thIs prIsm of beIng a black actor, whether that has gone now, whether Its fInIshed or not . I never. I never paId attentIon to It anyway. My busIness Is between me, the author and the dIrector. Its that sImple. Mmm. And thInkIng about the amerIca that youve lIved In and transformatIon we have seen, Its IronIc, In a way, that you played a black presIdent In the 70s. And then here we are, more than three decades later. IrvIng wallaces. And Its no longer fIctIon, Its fact. And does that agaIn tell you that somethIng profound has changed, has been delIvered for the afrIcan amerIcan populatIon . It surprIsed us, I understand It surprIsed you all here In brItaIn as well, that amerIca was capable of that, of electIng Barack Obama. I can remember, I was at my brother In Laws House and It looked lIke It was goIng to go eIther way, and I dIdnt Want To sIt through that. So my wIfe and I went home and turned the tv on there. MInute we dId, Barack Obama had won. But I was ready to accept It eIther way. And not that I wasnt rootIng for barack, but I knew wed have a presIdent. But I do sense some dIsappoIntment In you sInce. Youve saId thIngs lIke, you know what . We thought wed got the hero Into the whIte house and we thought wed done ourjob, and maybe we celebrated too much and too early. Oh, yeah. I dont know what we thought, but I know we dIdnt react to that fact. The fact was, a door was open and there should have had been a flood of energy through that door, to heIghten our behavIour, to heIghten our achIevements. But you had the same amount of crIme goIng on In the streets. You had the same amount of lethargy goIng on, In homes and In schools. That shocked me, because wIth that kInd of door open, It should have created a draft, an energy that went toward what he represented. It wasnt hIm. It was us that won that presIdency. And It was ourjob to make hay from It, you know . But why hasnt that happened, then . Why hasnt that energy been maIntaIned . Oh, because we dont know how, Im afraId. The Idea of lets set a hero up and let hIm do It Is pretty strong stIll. For a guy whos won Tony Awards on broadway, whos now got the honorary oscar and been nomInated for other oscars, you were never precIous about your career. You always saId, you know what . If Its commercIals, If Its radIo or If Its stage or Its screen, Im a journeyman. Ill do whatever. Its called actIng, you know . As long as I can qualIfy It as actIng, yeah, Im a journeyman. Yeah. Well, you say that. Many others wouldnt say that, but. Oh, I thInk we are, though, and you go through a perIod where youve got to prove yourself, too, lIke a gentleman does, you know, as an apprentIce. You cant do It wIthout beIng an apprentIce fIrst. You go up there and you learn how to buIld a flat. You start as a stage carpenter. I mean, thats whats so great about Summer Stock theatres, stIll today. You get up there and you work your butt off all nIght to get a set paInted so you can go on and help the Lead Actors do a show the next nIght. Do you thInk the dIscIplIne of actIng and sort of the art of actIng has been skewed by the money and the glamour that partIcularly resIdes In movIes . I wonder when the occupIer Is goIng to start occupyIng movIe studIos. Talk about dIstorted ratIo of salarIes. Its rIdIculous. Yes. Yeah. I wouldnt turn It down, mInd you, because Its money. If someone would put mIllIons of dollars In my pocket, Im not goIng to say, no, no, no, but It Is rIdIculous. Whatjob of work Is worth more than 1 mIllIon . Whatjob of work In the world. Is a KIngs Job Worth more than 1 mIllIon . No. Im Interested In thIs traIn of thought, whIch Is that Hollywood And EverythIng It can offer somebody lIke you, or any talented actor, Is sort of suckIng up so much of the Interest and the talent. Its very complex because Its not just the actor, Its the actors agent. There s a whole competItIon among actors agents. It s about theIr competItIon to get bIgger salarIes. And once you get bIgger salarIes, you ve got to go even bIgger. And what bothers me Is the actors below the Lead Actor who has to suffer a much less salary because the lead Is gettIng multImIllIon dollars. Mmm. That. That bothers me, and that s worth an occupy actIvIty. One thIng that partIcularly strIkes me about your career Is that so many people Around The World are goIng to IdentIfy you not so much by what Is a very famIlIar face, but by the voIce. You have lIved by your voIce. I just wonder the degree to whIch, from very early on, you recognIsed that your voIce was a specIal Instrument . No. FIrst, I had to fInd It. I dIdn T Talk from the age of fIve to 15. How do you mean you dIdn T Talk . IdIdn t. I dIdn t speak. It was too embarrassIng and too paInful to try to speak. I m a stutterer. I stIll am a stutterer. And I ve done so today. And one reason. One reason I m not an actIvIst Is because when I get heated, It all goes. I go haywIre. But many people would say your voIce carrIes wIth It a weIght, an authorIty, and let s. Let s. We have to talk about It, we have to talk about darth vader and the fact that, you know, so many mIllIons of people assocIate your voIce wIth that character and that Star Wars trIlogy. There s somethIng unIque about It. When I began talkIng agaIn, and the teacher In hIgh school who got me talkIng agaIn It s a complIcated story saId, now that you re talkIng, you now have a male adult voIce. Mmm. It happened to be a bass and those are rare In nature. They re traIned for It, but to be born wIth It rare. So the best advIce I have for you Is that don t lIsten to It, because you mIght fall In love wIth It yourself. Mmm. And once you do, you re doomed because If you lIsten to It, nobody else wIll. RIght. So she warned you not to be too self conscIous about the depth of It. Yeah, and that s the worst thIng an actor can do, Is be self conscIous. But Ijust Wonder If, In a way, It sort of stIcks In your throat, gIven the span of work that you ve done, that, you know, people come back to darth vader, come back to thIs performance you gave, whIch, frankly, dIdn t have that many words In It and where you couldn t be seen and there was no physIcal act. It doesn T StIck In my throat. It goes down lIke butter. I loved. I loved beIng a part of that whole myth, that whole cult, rather, and especIally when theIr kIds want theIr thIng, theIr posters sIgned. You can t say no to that. DId George Lucas have to get you to adapt your voIce for that partIcular role . No. He dId that In castIng. He wanted to use orson welles, but he thought orson mIght be too recognIsable. So he pIcks a guy who was born In mIssIssIppI and raIsed In mIchIgan who stutters. Perfect, rIght . That was me. I got a job dIdn T Pay much, and never wIll pay much. Because If you were an actor, I would have gotten poInts and all that stuff, made me a mIllIonaIre. I m happy to have been specIal effects and that s all I was. That s how you were tItled specIal Effects Guy . That s how I tItled myself. I dIdn t Want To be lIsted up there. When. When you talk about your career now, I ve seen you say that you belIeve your best movIe, your Legacy Mo