Roy Wood Jr. isn’t one to mince words, so the standup taking a stance on racism in movies is certainly no surprise. The Daily Show correspondent saw his third hour-long standup special hit Comedy Central on Friday night, and one of the highlights from “Roy Wood Jr.: Imperfect Messenger” is the above clip where he highlighted a little-acknowledged form of allyship in his mind: playing an extremely racist character in period pieces about the Black struggle.
In a clip Comedy Central released ahead of its premiere on Friday, Wood Jr. addressed actors who have taken on extremely racist roles and said they’re impact on people is extremely underrated.
“Because here’s the thing if you’re going to have a Black struggle movie, and you’re going to tell the truth that means you need to show some heinous sh*t happen,” Wood Jr. said. “And to show heinous sh*t happening that means you have to have white actors being motherf*ckin terrible on camera. You gotta have it.
Wood Jr. said he’s met some of these actors, who he calls “normal white boys” who have to “walk on set and just turn on the racism.”
“You’re going to tell the history of my people the right way, every now and again you’re going to need a white actor being a heinous mother f*cker on that camera,” Wood Jr. said, citing Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in Django Unchained as evidence.
“Leonardo DiCaprio transformed in that movie,” Wood Jr. said. “That was one of the bravest white allies I’ve ever seen in my life.”
They love to say Tom Cuise does all his own stunts,” Wood said, describing some particularly uncomfortable scenes from the movie. “Well so does Leonardo DiCaprio.”
You can watch the full clip above.