Louuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Got the chance to video interview an Academy Award-winner today.
Louis Gossett Jr. -- Fidder in "Roots, " for which he won an Emmy, and Sgt. Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman," for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar -- was gracious and down-to-earth.
He also reminded me that, for all his accolades for "Roots" and "Officer," another of his favorite roles was as an alien in the science fiction movie, "Enemy Mine."
Took him six hours in makeup a day, he said. And it was a physically painful role. But the discomfort helped him get into his character.
Gossett was in town as part of Guilford College's Bryan Lecture Series, speaking tonight on the ability -- and indeed the need --- for performers to use their celebrity to advocate for social change.
Among the more interesting points Gossett made was his concern about youth gangs, a growing problem here, and an intitative he has begun to take selected members of rival gangs to Africa.
"Roots," the newest generation.
These young people can get a better handle on where they are headed by understanding where they're from.
More on Gossett, a true gentleman, later.
Comments (7)
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I had the misfortune of attending the event at War Memorial auditorium ... an hour and half of diamond pure banality:
Moderator: tell us how is it that you are such a good person ...
answer (from Jane Seymour, Louis Gossett or Kathleen Turner): I just like to help people .. especially children ... they're our future, you know ...
It never got any deeper than that ...
Even of none of them had anything interesting to say on their own ... you would think one of them at least at some point in his/her life would have heard something interesting that someone else said and might have recalled it and shared it with the audience .... but no, it was all trite ... all the time ...
In all fairness to Louis Gossett, I am suspicious that if they had given the whole 1 1/2 hours to him ... eventually, he would have gotten around to saying something interesting ... I'm not sure if Guilford College had given Kathleen Turner or Jane Seymour an entire semester to lecture, they could have come up with something interesting to say ...
I'm sure they're all good people and have done good things in their communities and around the world ... but unfortunately, they didn't have anything to say of substance to an adult audience ...
Posted on September 19, 2007 10:30 AM
Allen, are you honestly asking us to believe that Gossett "reminded" you of his science fiction role? Isn't it the truth that you reminded him?
Posted on September 19, 2007 1:19 PM
Nope. He actually brought it up when I asked him about his most memorable roles.
Posted on September 19, 2007 1:40 PM
It really just came out of the blue like that? You weren't wearing your Vulcan uniform or anything like that?
Posted on September 19, 2007 3:15 PM
Of course not. That's only on Fridays.
Seriously, he considered it a challenging performance because he had to create alien movements and mannerisms, plus an alien accent.
He also had to give birth in that role (in this particular alien species, males handled that chore).
Posted on September 19, 2007 3:51 PM
The so-called "challenging" nature of such roles causes me to sigh. It's like mental retardation--give any decent actor a role playing a person with an IQ of
Posted on September 20, 2007 1:33 PM
I'd cut Lou some slack, Brian. He has an Oscar and an Emmy.
You and I don't.
Posted on September 20, 2007 3:14 PM