Billy Dee Williams believes actors should do "anything" they want to do, including using blackface for a role.
The Star Wars actor made the comment during a recent interview with Bill Maher on his "Club Random" podcast, per the HuffPost.
During the podcast, Williams discussed how actor Laurence Olivier wore blackface for the 1965 film Othello.
“When he did ‘Othello,’ I fell out laughing,” Williams said. “He stuck his a** out and walked around because Black people are supposed to have big a**es."
Maher then brought up Bradley Cooper wearing a prosthetic nose to portray composer Leonard Bernstein in the biopic Maestro. Cooper was accused of playing on stereotypical characterizations of Jewish people.
Williams continued to praise Olivier for his Othello performance.
“I thought it was hysterical. I loved it," the actor said.
When Maher suggested that an actor wouldn't be able to wear blackface in today's climate, Williams said: “Why not? You should do it.”
“If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do,” he added.
Maher noted that Williams previously "lived in a period where you couldn’t do that. Where you couldn’t play the part.”
“But it didn’t matter,” the actor responded. “The fact is . . . you don’t go through life feeling like, ‘I’m a victim.’ I refuse to go through life saying to the world, ‘I’m pissed off.’ I’m not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day.”
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