Interviewer subpage 12
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| Ruby Dee Actor |
| “How did the actor within you find her way to the stage and screen?” “Like magnets we are drawn toward something and may not even know why. I think I was preparing to be an actor before I ever knew it. Growing up in Harlem, I was an inquisitive child and keyed into a life of hard times and struggle—poverty and bread lines, street riots, cops beaten’ people, gangsters. And I was also an avid reader from a very early age. I sensed the truth in stories and poetry and understood the connection between literature and real life. I believe all of this profoundly informed my acting.” “You mean you understood the power of theater to reflect and influence the human condition?” “Yes exactly. I understood the relationship between life’s struggles and the presentation of words and stories to enhance consciousness about how we live and relate to each other. The people I met in American Negro Theater helped me understand that on the stage. I didn’t really have to do more than relate my life experience and who I was to the character I was portraying. If you don’t be black, then who do you be?” “This was the basis of your acting?” “Yes. I had within me the sensitivity to portray others. What I had learned in Sunday school was astonishingly true. We are each other and we are everybody. Even before acting became for me a discipline, I had the ability to let the character come through me.” |