Thandie Newton appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to talk about Maeve, her character on Westworld and to share a compelling new scene from the show. However, it’s very difficult to not address the recent election and the British actress had some words for Americans about parallels she sees between this moment and Brexit.
Newton praises Colbert for his speech on “Who’s Going to Clean Up This Sh*t?” and dives into how she thinks we should combat the fear that drove the results and the fear that many of us are currently experiencing:
People just don’t have words, you know? Shock. Numb. Well, because we went through Brexit and we’re going through Brexit there’s a strange unity between our two countries right now. And I find that–change is terrifying for people and I think it’s about not knowing one another. We’re divided, and Britain is divided, and clearly America is divided too. I just don’t think we really understood how profound it is. And it’s a wakeup call, and we need to find ways to bridge the gap.
And it’s funny actually because for me that’s what I have been doing my whole life and it’s caused me–when I was a child it caused me pain. It caused me to feel ashamed. Because I was not one thing and I wasn’t another thing and I grew up in an area where there were no people of color and I internalized people’s fear and I internalized people’s ignorance and I thought very little of myself as a result.
As I grew up and came to understand that, actually, that that’s not my feeling about myself and if those people knew me better they would understand and I–you know, because I’m not stupid, I came to also understand that it was fear and that we should be compassionate towards people who are afraid. We should reassure them. We should find ways to communicate with them better, and I think that’s what we have to do. And it’s not a quick fix. It won’t happen overnight. We’ve got to reach out and we’ve got to stop being ignited by the hate rhetoric…As soon as you treat another human badly, you are self-destructing because we are all in this together.
I understand the opposition some might have to Newton’s point about reassuring the fearful—the burden of education is one that usually unfairly falls to the oppressed and marginalized. No one should feel obligated to play nice or accommodate those that think of them as lesser-than. It can be really, really difficult to go high when they go low. For that reason, I find her willingness to play that role a powerful statement and I’m reminded of how much respect I have for individuals like the students who banded together to educate and talk to white nationalist Derek Black (I whole-heartedly recommend reading that powerful story here).
What did you think about Newton’s words?
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