James Earl Jones Interview (page: 7 / 8) National Medal of Arts	Print Interview

How do you deal with criticism? Do you react to it?

James Earl Jones: That's a tough one, because the critic is there as an operative in that industry. He's supposed to have a job that helps make the industry work. He's supposed to inform people what's worth seeing and what's not worth seeing, according to his opinion. Or if you're Kenneth Tynan, he's supposed to tell you what you tried to do and how well you succeeded. And that's very valuable. But I learned early on.

I learned early on. I think I was doing a play with J.D. Cannon, who was one of the actors in the McCloud series. And J.D. said, "Look Jimmy, we're gonna open tomorrow night. Would you do me a favor? Don't tell me what the critics said. I can't handle it." I said, "What! You can't handle it? If they're good can I tell you?" He said, "No. Especially when they're good. Because whatever they say is gonna distort your ability to go on stage the next night and do the work you should do. If they say you were good, you have to try and be good. You have to try and 'What did I do that was so good?' And you're distracted. If you're bad, you're totally defeated, or your ego's deflated, and you're distracted," he says, "I'd rather not know." And I decided at that moment that I'd do the same thing. I'd not read them anymore. I let my wife read them, and my agent read them, and if there's something I should know, they would interpret it for me. But, I would not read that person's opinion.
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It reminded me of one of the two books we were encouraged to read. It had nothing to do with show business. One was Zen and the Art of Archery. The other was Rilke's To a Young Poet his series of essays and letters to a poet. And...

Rilke had said to this young poet, "I sense this is what you're doing, you're writing for the critics. You're writing to please the critics." He says, "That'll never work. Because they're not pleasable. You must write to please yourself. And then they might be pleased, you know. But they're secondary to what you do." And so this all began to fall into place for me and I respect what critics do, but I don't -- their work trails mine. I mean, I've done my work, and I'm gonna keep looking ahead, and not behind at some reflection.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Integrity

You've met your share of controversy in your career, in the play about Paul Robeson, even over your performance as Darth Vader. How do you deal with that?

James Earl Jones: Well the Darth Vader controversy I was able to laugh off. Raymond St. Jacques, I think, wrote a letter to the editor saying, "How dare you present the only black in the galaxy as the bad guy?" I said, "Well heck, I'm just special effects. It's David Prowse that's in that costume."

I have not been able to laugh off the Paul Robeson controversy. I write about it in my book a little bit. It's still painful. Avery Brooks now takes the same production, exact same words, and presents it to the public, and he adds the fact that he's a singer; and it's a glorious production. No controversy at all. In my time, Paul Robeson, Jr. had not resolved his position as guardian of his father's image. He had not resolved it yet. We got in his way. We became a bone in his side, and so he became a bone in our side. I just happened to get in Paul Jr.'s way at the wrong time. He haunted the production and he concocted social apartheid to bring the production down. The young playwright Phillip Hayes Dean said, "He's acting like a McCarthyite himself now." But you know, victims of tyranny learn from the bad guys. You see it in Israel, you see it in black people. If you learn from the bad guys, you end up doing what they do.

What characteristics do you think are most important for success in any field?

James Earl Jones: I really don't know. I ambled into this, so I didn't record what works and what doesn't work. I don't know if we ever learn from history anyway. You've got to learn for yourself. Given that, I think every actor has to find out what works for himself. I'm hesitant to advise young actors because their world is so different from mine. How you approach an audition is very different. I think they have to dress up more, because we're talking about image in movies more than we're talking about the stage. I think you have to come on with an image. You have to dress the role much more than we ever thought of doing. We'd be embarrassed by that. That a brunette woman would dye her hair blond just for an audition is probably not unheard of now in a Hollywood situation. The business of training is very different now. I think you have to learn the basics.

You have to learn something more than just acting. You have to learn how to behave, how to fill your space on the stage or in film. You learn the difference also. That the film space is inner space, but you've got to fill it. You know, you watch Paul Newman, and he's jam packed in a very small area of his face. All the energy that I would express in my whole body, he's expressing right here: Zhooooom! That's a hard one to learn for a stage actor.
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What do you know about success now that you didn't know when you were younger?

James Earl Jones: Nothing. It was not about achievement. It's about setting on the path and going. I would've been a good explorer. I would've been a good with Lewis and Clark. Cause you're out there, and there's nothing telling you whether you're successful or not. There are no landmarks. You know you want to get to the Northwest corner of the country, but all you can do is walk. And there's space and space. It must have been a wild and weird world, but I think I would have fit in very well there.

Is there something you've not yet had a chance to do in your career that you'd still like to do?

James Earl Jones: No. I don't think I've done "the role" in film that I could say, "I leave that as my legacy." I've done it on stage, but I've not done it in film; I've not found that role yet. I'd like to find it. It's not too late. I'm still learning the art of film acting, and once I learn it, I might find it and do it before I retire. But that's not something I need to do, that's something I'd like to do.

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