Judas and the Black Messiah is a biopic produced by Ryan Coogler based on the life of American Civil Rights activist and Illinois Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton. Shaka King, the writer and director of the Warner Bros. film, ended up casting British actor Daniel Kaluuya as the iconic figure, alongside LaKeith Stanfield who plays FBI informant William O’Neal.
Academy Award nominee Daniel Kaluuya has an extensive filmography that includes iconic films such as, Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Marvel Comics’ Black Panther. He’s proven that he is a great actor who takes his craft seriously. Plus, he’s becoming one of the most recognizable black actors in Hollywood.
So, when the news broke that he would play the complicated role of Hampton, many moviegoers were puzzled. The question that crossed everyone’s minds was why is an African American activist being portrayed by someone who did not grow up in America?
This is not the first time a black British actor has been chosen to play an African American role. In fact, it’s quite the habit in Hollywood for casting directors to overlook black American actors when it comes to these types of films, with some exceptions reserved for high-profile actors, such as Denzel Washington, and Hip Hop biopics.
While anyone with a will could research the nuances of growing up as descendants of slaves in a systemically racist America, sometimes it’s very challenging for black people internationally to understand the everyday micro-aggressions and marginalization that black people face in the U.S.
When it comes down to it, do black British actors understand the African American plight enough to create an authentic portrayal in film? Some people believe they don’t.
In an interview with HOT 97 in March of 2017, actor Samuel L. Jackson criticized Daniel Kaluuya’s portrayal of an African American man in an interracial relationship with a white woman in the hit film Get Out.
Jackson stated, “Daniel grew up in a country where they’ve been interracial dating for a hundred years,” he said. “What would a brother from America have made of that role? Some things are universal, but [not everything].”
During a virtual panel that recently took place before the trailer of the film dropped, King was also asked about the discussion of British Actors playing African American roles as it pertains to Judas and the Black Messiah. He explained how he didn’t intend for there to be resistance toward the casting.
“The [Black] Panthers, ideologically, were very international,” King said. “So I can’t imagine there would be an objection. Maybe there would be, but I didn’t go into this thinking there would be.”
Fred Hampton Jr., the son of the Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, also chimed in during the panel.
“There is a legitimate question concerning people in the community: Will the actor colonize that?” he said. “We would have [to] and do hold them to a standard of respecting and being able to relate to the legacy of Chairman Fred, and not just with Daniel’s character.”
Penned by Will Berson and Shaka King, the film looks like a must-see and could potentially be an award-winning moment for Kaluuya and Stanfield if played right.
Other actors starring in the movie are Jessie Plemons (The Irishman), Lil Rel Howery (The Photograph) and Ashton Sanders (The Equalizer 2). Martin Sheen will play the role of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover.
The film was scheduled for release August 2020. However, due to COVID-19 the film was taken off the schedule and pushed back to 2021 without a confirmed date.
Watch the official trailer:
Something worth mentioning beyond the casting decisions of the film is the trailer, title and one liner that’s being used to describe the film.
In an effort to create a compelling story, the main draw is resting on the old paradigm of black-on-black tension. The focus of the film seems to be more on one black man’s “betrayal” of another black man and less about the government and FBI’s tactics to infiltrate the Black Panther Party from within.
Hampton would die from gunshot wounds on December 4, 1969 while sleeping in his bed after the Chicago Police Department and FBI unjustly raided his apartment.
The death would be considered an assassination after information detailing illegal COINTELPRO activities ran by the government was revealed. O’Neal would allegedly commit suicide by running into traffic in 1990. He was 40 years old.
Hopefully, the movie tackles how William O’Neal was manipulated into being a part of the operation that attempted to end the Black Panther Party with the primary focus on the white supremacists that forged the betrayal.
As O’Neal became more involved in the Party, he found out that there was nothing criminal about Fred Hampton and the organization although the FBI insisted otherwise. If the intensity of that dynamic is downplayed, this would be just another historically revised biopic that we can’t take seriously.
