When Billy Dee Williams landed the role of Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back, some people suggested it was because Star Wars was criticized for not having Black actors in the film. So, one interviewer decided to ask Williams, point blank, what he thought.
Williams landed the role fairly easily, because Irvin Kershner wanted him for it, and Williams obviously knew how big Empire was going to be. Kershner even told Williams that the role of Lando Calrissian was actually completely written with him in mind.
Williams loved the character’s name, partially because he believed it wasn’t a Black name for a Black actor and insisted that the actors in Bespin — the small city that Lando oversees — were a diverse group of people.
Quickly accepting the role while expressing admiration for George Lucas, Williams became an integral part of the main cast of the original trilogy. Once the film was released in May of 1980, Williams did a series of interviews on his own, including a bizarre interview on the Today Show, and a handful of print interviews that appeared in newspapers across the country. In addition, Williams did interviews with the other cast members, including one with Carrie Fisher where the duo sat down with prolific celebrity interview Bobby Wygant.
Just as they were about to start the interview, Williams complimented Wygant’s bracelet and even smoothly noted how nice it was to see her again. Wygant, after giving a brief “thank you,” goes right into her very first question.
She asked Williams, “Billy, do you think that there are going to be some people who are going to say, ‘Oh, well, there he is the token Black now,’ and what do you have to say to those people?”
To Wygant’s defense, there were some people saying such things, but it certainly wasn’t a significant percentage of Star Wars fans. Williams, quite possibly wondering why she would start the interview with such a question, didn’t hesitate at all in his response.
“Well,” Williams answered, “I don’t think about things like that, really. I just want to have a lot of fun, and this is part of it, and I was very pleased to be invited as a part of the Star Wars cast.”
Williams later disarms Wygant with his charm by complimenting her teeth and her smile.
Maybe the best part of the interview is how humble the smooth-talking Williams is. It’s intriguing to see the most confident actor of the bunch, who plays the most confident character in the film, be so modest.
He genuinely seems to love the film, and praises the production. Early on in the interview, he mentions how such a film is real departure for him, as would would his role in the grossly underrated Sylvester Stallone film Nighthawks, and compliments his co-actors by saying, “Everybody else in it is incredible besides me.”
We all know how incredible Billy Dee Williams was in the role but his humility is admirable. If we don’t have Lando, or more accurately Billy Dee as Lando, than Empire doesn’t work the way it so perfectly does.
Let’s not forgot that Wedge Antilles and Lando Calrissian are the ones that blow up the second Death Star and save everyone.
