David Harewood: ‘If a white actor wanted to play Martin Luther King, I’d say go for it’

“You can hear people’s brains clicking for the first 10 minutes,” David Harewood says with a smile, as he relays how audiences have responded to his performance in Best of Enemies, the hit James Graham play of last year that is about to open in the West End.

Harewood, 56, has pulled off some eye-opening career moves in his time. He was the first black actor to play Othello at the National, 25 years ago. In 2009, he triumphed as Martin Luther King Jr in The Mountaintop, enabling Katori Hall’s two-hander to jump from the fringe to the West End, and beating Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem to the Olivier Best New Play award. Two years later, he broke through in the States, landing the major role of the CIA’s counter-terrorist chief in two seasons of the TV espionage thriller Homeland.

Still, playing William F Buckley – that leading (white) intellectual of mid-20th century US conservatism – arguably entails the biggest leap of all. How to describe the switch? “I’ve never liked the term ‘colour-blind casting’,” says Harewood – whip-smart and sharply dressed when we meet in the midst of final rehearsals in Southwark. “It sounds like, ‘Let’s ignore the fact that he’s black.’ I prefer ‘cross-casting’.”

There is a considerable provocation in seeing Harewood as Buckley, acting out a series of real-life televised ding-dongs from 1968 with liberal colossus Gore Vidal (played by Star Trek star Zachary Quinto), with Enoch Powell an interviewee as well.

“I couldn’t find a way in at first,” Harewood says. After committing to the project, its demands belatedly hit home, and hard. “I freaked out on the first night when I walked out on stage at the Young Vic and was confronted by the sight of black members of the audience. I thought, ‘Have I put myself in such a Right-wing place that I’ve forgotten I’m from the black community?’” Yet he’s fully convinced of the approach’s artistic value. “I think it’s similar to Hamilton – having people of colour representing people who are white makes the audience lean in and listen more.”

The fact that he’s playing “someone obviously white” who voices Right-wing opinions has fresh relevance too, he maintains: “With Suella Braverman, Kwasi Kwarteng and Rishi Sunak, you’ve got the voice of Right-wing Conservatism coming out of the mouths of people of colour. You need black voices on the Right as much as you need black voices on the Left, but they can give legitimacy to unpalatable ideas.” He alludes scathingly to Braverman’s recent use of the word “invasion” to describe migrants arriving here.

Though Buckley is worlds removed from Harewood – raised in Birmingham, his father a lorry driver and his mother a caterer, both from Barbados – he found vital points of identification, particularly as a family man (he has two daughters with his wife, Kirsty Handy). “When I played Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela [in the 2009 BBC drama Mrs Mandela], I saw that you can’t play the icon or the idea. Buckley adored his wife and loved his children. Rather than judging him, I’ve latched on to those sides of his humanity that ring true for me.”

He uncovered complexities too: “I think he was more of an elitist than a racist. He didn’t think black people were ready to have the vote but he toured some big cities in the north and was surprised at how intelligent some of the black conservatives were. And when he saw how violent southern segregationists were, he recoiled from that and modulated his position.”

Harewood’s involvement in Best of Enemies flags up the strides Britain has made in casting opportunities. When he emerged from Rada in the mid-1980s, he found himself pigeonholed as a “black actor” – which contributed to a psychotic episode in his early 20s, a time of his life explored to award-winning effect in a poignant 2019 TV documentary, Psychosis and Me, and a compelling memoir. The roles he was offered were limited, especially in the classical repertoire. “Some parts just seemed off-limits. In Shakespeare, I could play Othello, but Hamlet? The feeling was, ‘That’s not for you black guys.’ What’s great now is that a black Hamlet doesn’t cause much fuss. And thank f--- we’ve got to that place.”

Even so, when his Othello opened at the National in 1997 – directed by Sam Mendes – some of the media reaction left a sour taste that lingers to this day. An article in The Independent described the play as a victim of political correctness, “the fear” now being “of outraging liberal opinion by having a white actor ‘black up’”. “The attitude,” Harewood says, “was: ‘How dare they [cast me]?’” It’s an unpalatable sentiment, but still, it’s worth asking: is it really right that no white actor should take on the role?

For not all actors are happy. Steven Berkoff has called it “racism in reverse”. Harewood sets the issue in the context of the nefarious tradition of “blackface”, a subject he understands in-depth, having worked with historian David Olusoga on a forthcoming BBC documentary about it. “If you watch Olivier now, it’s all rolling eyes, it’s so ridiculous. Would it work if he didn’t do that? Even for a black person to play Othello, they have to work hard to make it convincing, because his jealousy and madness have a cartoonish quality.” A pause.

“Look, if De Niro said he wanted to play Othello tomorrow, I’d be right in the front row, because I’d want to see how he does it. I think everyone should be able to play anything. If a white actor wanted to play Martin Luther King, I’d say, ‘Have at it.’ [The issue is] whether or not it would look ridiculous. But anything’s possible, and I’m all for everybody doing everything. Nothing should be off-limits. Don’t cancel people for having a go!”

Generous sentiments, especially given that, yes, there remains work to do in opening up opportunities for black actors. If Harewood’s angry, he doesn’t show it, but he still raises an eyebrow at the situation he faces in the UK, now that he’s back from America. “I had to leave the country to get a leading role on television. And I still haven’t played one in this country, which is extraordinary. I can name maybe three black actors who have had their own show here, whereas in America, you can turn on the TV and any night of the week there’ll be an actor of colour leading their own show.” What’s going on? “I think there’s still a fear that people won’t tune in.”

It’s clear that he feels that the UK has a way to go. “There were all these marches round the world in support of Black Lives Matter [in 2020] but here there seemed to be this thing of ‘we don’t have racism in this country’. I was angry about that. People have no choice but to listen now, but there are still voices who tell you it doesn’t exist. We now have our first non-white PM – but tune in to certain radio stations, and some people weren’t happy.”

Fellow Midlander Lenny Henry has been outspoken about the need for greater diversity in the media. Harewood has decided to drive the change himself, setting up his own production company. “That’s where I’m heading. I want to create work of value that’s more colourful and diverse – not beholden to anyone.”

Best of Enemies opens at the Noël Coward Theatre on Nov 28. Tickets: 0344 482 5151; bestofenemiesplay.com