He’s the first black actor to play King Arthur in a drama series. But Perth-raised Devon Terrell says he has never been cast in an Aussie TV or movie.
Emboldened by the Black Lives Matter movement, even joining in protest marches near his new Los Angeles home, Terrell is seizing his moment with all the power of Excalibur.
It’s an indictment on the local industry’s lack of diversity and a conversation Terrell hopes has been inspired by the racial uprisings around the world. Born to an African-American father and Indian Australian mother, Terrell has been confronted recently by the scars of his own experience with racism – desperate to make a difference.
He adds: “My thing as an actor, I’m educating myself every day and as a person of colour as well. I’m half African-American and my lineage has roots to tragic things, most likely and I’ve cried a lot during this period. You’re just having conversations now that you’ve always wanted people to talk about but they don’t believe you … they think it’s in your head.
“It was just that moment of walking on the streets … I was walking with my girlfriend and her friends in the marches and just feeling like ‘this is a moment and if we don’t capitalise on this, then when is the change going to happen? When are people of colour and those in the LGQBTI community going to gain the respect of the general community if you don’t take a stand?”
“It was one of those things where I wanted to get into the shape of what a medieval person would look like or move like. I didn’t want to go in there looking like Thor, no offence to Chris Hemsworth, but it was constant horse training and fight training and archery. Then the emotional stuff on top of that and learning your lines.”
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