Actor Joe Morton’s portrayal of Rowan Pope on ABC’s political drama “Scandal” won him an Emmy in 20l4. Morton’s Pope is certainly a villain for all seasons. Recently tapped as a regular on the series, Morton began his career on stage in the original cast of the rock opera “Hair”.
In May, he returned to the stage in his one man show “Turn Me Loose”, based on the life of comedian/activist Dick Gregory. The play, written by Gretchen Law and directed by John Gould Rubin, opened at the Westside Theater on 43rd Street. Morton explained:
“The play is about Dick Gregory’s struggle to figure out whether he should become a very rich comedian or devote his energies to activism.”
Gregory’s trailblazing comedic activism, mostly before white audiences in Chicago, daringly drew on current events and the racial issues of his time, foreshadowing the work of Jon Stewart and John Oliver. Morton quoted one of Gregory’s noted one-liners: “Segregation is not all bad. Have you ever heard of a collision where the people in the back of the bus got hurt?”
Morton is also working on a television special about the continued struggle for voting rights. This project grew out of the frustration and grave disappointment he and his co-writer experienced over the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the l965
Voting Rights Act, commenting that:
“In the beginning it seemed to us no one was really talking about or actively protesting what the Court had done. We started doing research and discovered Ari Berman’s book “Give Us the Ballot” which describes the struggle for voting rights from Selma to the present. Our target audience is going to be The Millennials. We intend to involve comedians and make it very edgy, very real. We want people to be entertained as well as being educated without explicitly saying you now have to take it on your own to make it sure everyone has access to the ballot box “
Morton’s personal experience of racial prejudice came early on. His father, Joseph Thomas Morton Sr., was a US Army Intelligence Officer, who was sent to integrate US Army bases in West Germany and Okinawa in the 1950’s. Morton’s memory of his family’s experience on those bases at that time was not a happy one.
“We’d show up unannounced and nobody wanted to have anything to do with us.”
We wondered if those memories feed a bit into Mr. Pope’s history?
“I think he has some military background not unlike my own father, who achieved a certain amount of success; one of very few black men trying to do that at that time. Like Colin Powell, Pope got himself in the fast track. Pope took a hard look at the politics going on around him and was disgusted by it. He used his knowledge to gain more power, then decided it needed to be cleaned up. In the ways Pope deals from the shadows, he reminds me of Ralph Ellison’s Dr. Bledsoe in “The Invisible Man”.
We wondered what kind of father was Mr. Pope to his daughter Olivia, played by Kerry Washington. Her character is so smart and aggressive; yet she has this surprising place of vulnerability.
“At some point Pope abdicated being a father and sent her to a fancy boarding school; likely during the time he and Maya split. During this time he was building what became B613. Their father-daughter relationship is unhealthy; all about power. This may be how her relationships with men work the way they do. On one side it’s really neat and on an other side, very messy.”
We noted that as an actor, he must find real pleasure in having such a substantial script and such a powerful story with which to work.
“For all of us on the show, it’s a real joy. What also helps is that we all come from a theatrical background with a real ability to communicate actors to actors and actors to director. There’s no ego, everybody comes to work to support the script.”
Creative Credits
- Photography
- Monique Carboni
- Photography
- Alissa Pagels
- Retouching
- Brianna Kish
- Styling
- Rachel Jimenez
- Grooming
- Jean Ramos
