Wendell Pierce

Thank you for having me, Tanya.

Oh, it's really rest and relaxation because I have a couple of hours that I have to prepare for.

But I try to relax and warm up and mind, body, and spirit prepare for the journey.

You know, I always think of these roles, you know, these iconic roles and large roles, like the beginning of a hike up Mount Everest.

So I'm at base camp at this time of the day.

Well, first of all, just the playwright himself, Mr. William Shakespeare, is a great challenge.

You know, I try to do the trifecta, as I call it, do television and film and theater shows.

every year, you know, the great trifecta and all of the different mediums.

But I think I'm going to expand that to quartet because I would like to do a Shakespeare every year if I can because, first of all, the detective work, I call it, of mining the text for all of its understanding and everything that Shakespeare was doing

It's telling you not only about the characters, but how to portray them and what's happening.

And that's in the verse in the iambic pentameter, but it's also in the onomatopoeia of...

the words sounding like what they are, the monosyllabic words denoting a slower pace and the opposite being true, multisyllabic words at a faster pace.

That's just the technical aspect of doing a classical text like that.

And then you have...

the emotional work that you have to do, and the connection with the other actors and characters, and the love that I have for Desdemona.

And actually, the discovery in this role is the love that I have for Iago, which has been key for opening up Othello for me.

Normally, he is just seen as the villain and manipulated by Iago, but actually...

he is, that is a part of the love story too.

He is, in my interpretation, he is the person that I've known and loved and trusted all of my life because I'm orphaned.

I am an outsider and I'm orphaned since a small child.