Some things will resonate with certain people that don’t resonate with others, and so on. The thing I find fascinating about Foundation is that there are so many ideas, so many irons in the fire. Alfred Enoch agrees that it’s challenging to pick one single message that underlies the show.

“Everyone will take something different.”Īsimov’s original work was noted for its multi-faceted themes and rejection of a simple moral framework.

So that was important to me and really gratifying.”Īlfred Enoch in “Foundation,” premiering Septemon Apple TV+. You want to be engaging with things that mean something to the people who are watching, that have resonances for them. The themes are what attracted Enoch to the role in the first place, as he told The Stage earlier this year. “Any story we tell however, we set it, is going to be saying something about ourselves at this moment…the more you can engage with issues of the day, the better.” So, personally, I like that, I dig that… ‘If you’re going to do something, you’re going to tell a story, come at it with attitude.’ Have an angle make a choice,” he said. “ you make an adaptation of anything you make something new. You distance the story, you set it in space, you set it in another country, you set it in the past, you do it, and you comment on the world around us, maybe with more freedom because people see things anew.Įnoch rejects the notion that Foundation has strayed away from the original source material, which kicked off with Asimov’s first novel in 1951. I think it’s a long-established tradition in storytelling to enable us to see the wood for the trees. ‘It’s vital.Speaking with Winter is Coming, actor Alfred Enoch explained the importance of giving these points of reference. It can’t just be for people like me, who went to Westminster… That’s self-defeating.’ For Red, more than 40,000 tickets will be available for £10 - some 25 per cent. To me that’s self-evidently not right.’ If things are to change, London’s theatre scene needs to be proactive in broadening the economic background of both its actors and audiences: ‘It has to be for everyone. But that’s obviously problematic in a society where some people get easier access to things like that than others. ‘I’m immensely grateful that I had all those opportunities. I don’t know - was there a big outcry about Brad Pitt playing Achilles ? Don’t think so.’ In contrast, he points to the recent BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City in which he played the Trojan hero Aeneas: ‘David Gyasi plays Achilles and it’s a certain indication of how far it has to come that there were people on the internet and out in the world that were saying, “A black Achilles?” But no one goes, “A blonde, long-haired Achilles?” It’s extraordinary.’Ī former public schoolboy, he is sympathetic to claims that acting has become too posh. I think it’s beneficial… There’s the way we appropriate different cultures in a way we’re comfortable with. Where do you draw the line?’Įither way, he would like to see more colour-blind casting of classics and period dramas: ‘It’s a responsibility that I think, yes, exists. ‘There are lots of ways you could ask that, not just “can a black English actor play a black American?” It gets to a point where actors don’t get to do any acting… Alfred Molina can’t play Rothko. ‘I mean, there are lots of modulations of that question, do you know what I mean?’ says Enoch, thoughtfully. The flip side is that there are those in the US - notably Samuel L Jackson - who have criticised black British actors for taking work from Americans. Finally: ‘There’s a more evident black history in America… it’s harder to make a film about 19th-century America and not have a single black person.’ Firstly the industry is bigger… there’s a hell of a lot of work out there.’ That aside, he argues that the US’s problematic racial history has created an ‘engagement that impels people to work against it’. ‘I think there are a couple of things here. What does he make of criticisms that black British actors, among them Daniel Kaluuya and David Oyelowo, appear to need to go to the US to achieve fame? It turns out he has given this a lot of thought. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENT.

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