Wendell Pierce

And he also warned us that there are going to be people who will do everything possible that you won't succeed.

And so it was always there that I started to think of Willie Loman.

And what is so tragic about Willie Loman is for men like that,

the American dream was still something that was denied them at every step of the way.

We achieved part of the American dream, but it was through...

an extreme difficulty.

And that's what... And that can break people.

That can destroy people's psyche and destroy their heart, destroy their mental facility.

And I think that's what happened with Willie Loman, right?

Because he was a black man in America, right?

that loved the country, that loved the economic ethos and idea of the American dream.

But then that dream was a nightmare for him.

He was placed in his expectations far outlasted and grew far past what was available to him.

And out of that desperation, he destroyed himself and he destroyed his family.

Yeah, as a black man in America.

I mean, because what happens is there are people that came to the play that thought we rewrote the play.

They said, you can't change that.

A producer actually came to me with great concern.

Like, wait, you can't say there's the scene where Willie Loman is caught in infidelity with a woman in a hotel by his son.

It is the moment that broke all of their lives.