Billy Porter has signed on to co-write and star in a biopic of James Balwyn, recently challenging those who’ve doubted his talent. Deadline wrote an article on Porter’s response to critics during an appearance on the Tamron Hall Show.
Porter said, “First and foremost, the internet has created a space where it’s made people think that their opinion matters at all — it doesn’t. I am 53 years old and I’ve dedicated my life to my art and my craft. Question me at your own peril.”
Porter said he’s just started writing the script with Dan McCabe.
An article written on Deadline, continues to elaborate on Porter’s feelings in his new film. “It’s alright. Call it whatever you want, arrogant… whatever you want. I’ve worked hard for this,” he continued. “And my mantra and I say it all the time, I do not now, nor will I ever, adjudicate my life or humanity in sound bites on social media. I’m going to focus on the work — that’s all I can do. People have been doubting me my whole life. This ain’t nothing new. None of it is new.”
Deadline writes that in an interview on the daytime show, Porter also discussed why making the film was important to him.
“James Baldwin and his work and what he represented in the world, everything, he’s one of the first people who I saw who looked like me, who represented me in the fullness: Black, queer, and present,” Porter said. “I’m alive because I was able to see him in my early 20s, and I met an English professor about a couple of years back who didn’t know who he was — an English professor, at a college, teaching English at a college, who didn’t know who James Baldwin was. This is unacceptable. It’s completely unacceptable.”
Produced by Allen Media Group Motion Pictures, the film is based on David Leeming’s 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography.
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