This is the primary time David Harewood has stepped by means of the doorways of Rada’s London headquarters since he grew to become its president in mid-February, and he’s instantly struck by flashbacks of his time as a scholar right here. “Gorgeous reminiscences,” he says. “Reminiscences of my audition, the work … and that staircase will at all times be memorable since you stroll in and go: ‘Oh my God, I’m on the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts!’ It’s very evocative.”
Harewood, 58, is the primary particular person of color to guide Rada, and he follows within the footsteps of such luminaries as Kenneth Branagh, Richard Attenborough, Princess Diana and John Gielgud. It’s the most prestigious of appearing faculties – some would say the luvviest of all of them – and has been a coaching floor for everybody from Anthony Hopkins to Tom Hiddleston, Fiona Shaw to Phoebe Waller-Bridge. However like many British drama faculties, on the top of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Rada issued an apology acknowledging that it “has been and at the moment is institutionally racist”.
Harewood’s appointment, alongside that of one other black actor, Cynthia Erivo, as vice-president, may very well be seen as a transfer in the direction of righting these wrongs, however he is not only right here for the symbolism. The truth is, his expertise makes him uniquely certified, he says: “I’ve been to the Golden Globes and the Emmys. I’ve seen the glamorous finish of the business. However I’ve additionally been in a psychological establishment due to this business, so I do know either side of it. And I need to ensure that I can provide the scholars entry to as a lot of my expertise, good and dangerous, as doable, in order that they know what to anticipate.”
We’re in a sunny assembly room, simply off that staircase. A pile of unopened letters awaits Harewood on the desk. He’s been filming in Canada for the previous few months, he explains, however he appears recent and stuffed with vitality. “I got here into this room a number of weeks earlier than I used to be sectioned,” he observes. This might have been in 1989, a number of years after he had left as a scholar. “In my psychotic state, I got here in to pitch an concept to the then principal, Oliver Neville, about methods to educate the scholars.” Harewood has spoken and written about his breakdown since, which was, he causes, partly induced by the racism of British society normally, and the leisure business specifically.
Race points proceed to plague British drama. In February, Rishi Sunak condemned a West Finish theatre for its plans to stage two performances of Jeremy O Harris’s Slave Play (out of a 13-week run) for “all-black-identifying audiences” to be able to make it as accessible as doable. “Limiting audiences on the idea of race could be improper and divisive,” mentioned a authorities spokesperson. Earlier this month, it was reported that the black actor Francesca Amewudah-Rivers had acquired a “barrage of deplorable racist abuse” on social media because of being forged as Juliet, reverse Tom Holland, in a brand new manufacturing of Romeo and Juliet.
Harewood can sympathise. His first skilled gig, in 1988, was enjoying Romeo in an all-black adaptation of Shakespeare, which provoked an identical response. “Oh my God, I obtained slaughtered,” he recollects. “One reviewer mentioned: ‘Apparently this man went to Rada. Why did they let him in? Why did they let him out?’ One other one mentioned: ‘He doesn’t appear to be Romeo; he appears to be like extra like Mike Tyson.’” And quite than social media, this was coming from broadsheet newspapers. “Each interview I did was about my color: why are you enjoying Romeo? Must you be enjoying Romeo? Did Shakespeare write it for a black actor?”
The expertise affected him deeply, he says. “My second job was with the identical director, and that’s when issues actually began to go dangerous. Actually the one means I may go on stage was to get hammered. I actually didn’t get pleasure from my expertise: I hated appearing, hated the occupation, hated what I used to be doing, completely misplaced my confidence. I believe that was the beginning of my breakdown.”
Harewood “slowly got here undone”, he recalled within the Guardian in 2021. He was smoking a variety of weed on the time. He “spent weeks strolling throughout London, typically all through the evening, speaking to strangers and following them wherever they led me. I’d black out solely to regain consciousness in a very completely different a part of city, hours later, afraid and with completely no concept what had occurred within the interval.” Associates intervened and he was sectioned, after which he went on to rebuild his profession, getting by on what small roles the UK business needed to supply. He married in 2013 and has two daughters, now aged 18 and 21, each of whom are in larger training. However, like so many black British actors, he solely gained mainstream recognition when he went to the US; in 2011 he was forged because the CIA chief within the hit counter-terrorism sequence Homeland. He hadn’t labored for a 12 months earlier than that, however he’s been busy ever since: on stage and on the small display, from a juicy function in DC’s Supergirl sequence to BBC documentaries on his psychosis, on Covid’s disproportionate impacts on individuals of color and on the historical past of blackface.
He wasn’t searching for a task at Rada; a few 12 months in the past, the chairman, Marcus Ryder, provided him the job out of the blue. Harewood’s first response was: “What? It doesn’t make any sense. No, I can’t do this,” he says. “After which I form of thought: ‘OK, I’ll give it a go.’” It was solely when it was introduced that he realised what a giant deal it was. “I had calls, letters from everywhere in the world. My Instagram blew up. And it was such an extremely constructive, excited response. I all of the sudden realised: that is really fucking enormous. And I’m actually pleased with it. Most likely extra pleased with it than anything I’ve ever finished.”
Drama college was one thing of a haven for Harewood, it appears, particularly in contrast along with his experiences instantly both facet of it. The kid of a working-class, Barbadian immigrant household, he grew up in Birmingham, the place being chased by skinheads and having bricks thrown by means of his window was a part of his each day expertise. “I knew nothing about drama,” he says. “I blagged my means by means of college, at all times doing performs, being a little bit of a mischievous little bastard, being kicked out of lessons frequently.” It was solely when a instructor urged appearing {that a} lightbulb got here on in his head. He was accepted by the Nationwide Youth Theatre, got here to London for a six-week course, and “discovered this tribe of people that messed about similar to me, and had humorous voices similar to me and have been very mischievous, similar to me”.
A 12 months later he was strolling into this constructing for a daylong audition, on the finish of which nearly all the different candidates had been eradicated. Then Neville, the principal, mentioned to him: “You’re fairly a humorous lad. Are you able to make me snort?” What did he do? “It was terribly foolish. It was virtually like a Lenny Henry sketch. I used to be, like, a Rastafarian Santa Claus breaking into individuals’s homes and speaking to himself.” He went residence considering he’d blown it, however the acceptance letter got here by means of days later. “I simply learn the primary three phrases: ‘We’re happy …’ and I leapt out of my fucking pores and skin.
“I simply had an absolute ball right here. For me, it was the primary time training made sense. I used to be studying about literature, Shakespeare, Chekhov and Molière; all these incredible classical writers, what they have been writing about, the analogies they have been utilizing and issues that they have been making an attempt to level out to society – it simply utterly sparked my creativeness.”
Looking back, there have been some points that have been fairly racist. “I used to be singing negro spirituals,” he says, laughing. “I wished to sing jazz and my music instructor was like: ‘No, no, no!’” He kilos the desk as if enjoying a piano and sings in a loud, Paul Robeson-style baritone: “I obtained a lot o’ nuttin”. “And I’m like, ‘What the fuck is that this?’” His impersonation is so humorous I can’t assist laughing as nicely, despite the fact that we’re speaking about institutional racism.
There was just one different black man in his 12 months at Rada, he recollects, although instances have been already altering; the 12 months beneath him included Adrian Lester, Sophie Okonedo and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Folks of color now make up about 40% of Rada’s consumption, it says. It will get 3,000 to 4,000 purposes a 12 months for the 28 locations on its appearing BA, and profitable candidates should get by means of 4 rounds of auditions.
Right this moment’s college students of color are much more conscious of race issues, says Harewood, although this comes with its personal challenges. He has heard of scholars rejecting options that they research Shakespeare or Chekhov. “A youthful black actor now will say, ‘I desire a black playwright, I need black administrators, I need, I need …’ So it’s a distinct perspective.” Various routes at the moment are accessible; he praises London’s Id appearing college, whose alumni embrace John Boyega and Letitia Wright – actors who’re comfortably themselves. “When once we have been popping out of faculty, the Royal Shakespeare Firm and the Nationwide Theatre have been the height of an actor’s profession … Youngsters aren’t essentially concerned with that any extra; they’ll come out of drama college and get a six-season Netflix present.”
There are different points dealing with right now’s era that he doesn’t envy, although. Rada was as soon as caricatured as a bastion of poshness, however not less than actors from lower-income households, similar to Harewood, may get a scholar grant; now there are fears that drama college is completely for the well-off. It’s an issue throughout larger training, Harewood factors out, “so I don’t assume it’s particularly to do with Rada. However I do assume we now have to search out methods of constructing that ladder to success accessible to all. It could be a disgrace if the one means you possibly can get right here is that if Mum and Dad can dip into their pockets.” (Rada’s charges are set by the federal government at £9,250 a 12 months for UK college students, similar to different undergraduate programs, a spokesperson tells me, and it helps 60% of its undergraduates by means of its scholarship fund.)
Harewood can also be involved about the place identification politics may very well be headed. “We’re at this unusual level within the occupation the place individuals go: ‘Oh, you may’t play that function since you’re not disabled, or you may’t play that since you’re not likely from there.’ The secret is appearing. Sure, we’ve obtained to be consultant, however I do assume we now have to watch out … That even extends to Othello in blackface. I say, if you wish to black up, have at it, man. It’d higher be fucking good, or else you’re gonna get laughed off the stage. However knock your self out! Anyone ought to have the ability to do something.”
Harewood has practised what he’s preaching. Final 12 months he performed the infamous white conservative William F Buckley within the play Better of Enemies, based mostly on Buckley’s legendary right-versus-left TV debates with Gore Vidal in 1968. “I knew the minute I walked on stage, 99% of the viewers was considering: ‘Why is he enjoying that?’ However by the tip of it, everyone was going, ‘Fuck me, that labored very well!,’” says Harewood. “Listening to his phrases popping out of my mouth, many individuals went, ‘Why am I liking William F Buckley?’” This was a far cry from the 23-year-old Harewood who performed Romeo. “You convey on to the stage what you might be. I’m not pretending to be white; I’m bringing my full self.”
How will his Rada function have an effect on his appearing profession? “Effectively, Ken did fairly nicely, didn’t he?” he laughs – as in his predecessor, Kenneth Branagh. “I’d prefer to be concerned right here as a lot as I can. And I must be trustworthy and say that my profession has slowed down. Nobody’s banging down my door proper now.” That mentioned, there appears to be a lot within the pipeline. In Canada he was taking pictures a film about Denham Jolly, the founding father of Canada’s first black-owned radio station (means again in, er, 2001). He’s returning there subsequent week to work on a brand new TV present, Joyful Face. And he’s set to look within the second sequence of the BBC’s hit present Sherwood, amongst different initiatives.
Being an actor is a bizarre balancing act, he suggests. On the one hand you’ve obtained to be sufficiently resilient to deal with all of the criticism, rejection, anxiousness and stress. On the opposite, he’s realised, the purpose is to be open and weak. On a private stage, Harewood appears to have squared that circle. “I at all times thought you needed to puff your chest out on stage and be rock stable. After which after my breakdown, the primary time I obtained on stage, I used to be terrified. And there’s one thing fascinating in that, as a result of I used to be weak … I’ve embraced that. And it provides one thing to my stage of character as a result of I’m secure in that vulnerability. I’m in a a lot better place now than I’ve ever been.”
A number of days later, Harewood contacts me by electronic mail. When he obtained residence that day, he says, he obtained spherical to tackling the pile of unopened mail that was sitting on the desk throughout our interview. “It was all great and complimentary … besides the second to final one which started: ‘The true patriots of England will likely be turning of their grave at your appointment …’ I didn’t learn on, however I may see it was stuffed with the standard. My spouse learn the primary line and laughed however I may see her expression change as she learn on and she or he in a short time ripped it to shreds and threw it within the bin. I’ve already put methods in place, as I’ve needed to do earlier than, the place such mail is opened by others first. That means I don’t need to cope with such rubbish.”
