"Shakespeare was able to put into one speech what other playwrights can't do in an entire play," claimed Harry Lennix, who can currently be seen performing the juicy role of Aaron the Moor in Julie Taymor's directorial film debut, Titus (based on the Bard's Titus Andronicus). Likewise, Lennix accomplishes in his performance what many actors fail to do-to bring an urgency, rich complexity, and absolute electricity to Shakespeare's centuries-old words.
This was not the first time Lennix played the role of the scheming Moor. He originally played the part in Taymor's 1994 Off-Broadway stage production of Titus Andronicus. In addition to discovering and mastering a great role, Lennix was also introduced to Taymor, who would prove to be a huge influence on him.
"We met and immediately fell in love on an intellectual level and on a theatrical level," recalled Lennix of Taymor, the acclaimed director of Broadway's The Lion King. "She remains my idol. I think she's the ultimate director, and I think she will make quite a mark in film as well if there's any justice. What she's been able to bring to the stage is quite unlike anything anybody else has done."
While Aaron has a truly wicked side-one capable of betrayal, murder, and mutilation-Lennix was able to identify with this character, a slave who turns the tables on his master, Tamora (played by Jessica Lange in the film), and wreaks havoc on Rome's aristocracy.
Said the performer, "I think it's always important for the actor to like the character he's playing-to at least find something about the character that he can identify with. I love Aaron. I think Aaron is a guy who, by his own wits, has been able to survive and prosper and exact some form of revenge against this world, that in his own mind, and through my outside eye, has probably done him great injustice.
"It was quite easy for me to identify with him. To be the only black guy in a room, for example, is not something that's foreign to me. Do I necessarily want to kill people? No. But to have the ability not to live passively, and to react to everything that other people do is an empowering trait that gives Aaron self-actualization. I think he's the most fully realized character in the entire play and in much of Shakespeare."
Lennix knows his Bard. As a graduate of Northwestern University in Chicago, the actor had numerous opportunities to study and perform Shakespeare's work. After graduating college, Lennix, like many of his peers, did not have an easy time making a living at acting. In fact, it took him eight years before he could call it his day job. Prior to moving to New York at the insistence of his agent, Lennix taught music in the Chicago Public School system to supplement his income.
While in Chicago, he helped found the touring company Legacy, which is still in existence. Lennix is especially proud of Legacy's nationally seen production of The Meeting, featuring two well known historical figures, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X (played by Lennix). He also has a close association with the Goodman Theatre, performing in numerous plays there (including its acclaimed production of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom two years ago) and currently serving on the Goodman's staff. He plans to star this spring in the Goodman's production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
Not surprisingly, Lennix, whose other credits include recurring roles on television's E.R. and Diagnosis Murder and the films Bob Roberts, The Five Heartbeats, Mo' Money, and Spike Lee's Get on the Bus and Clockers, would tell any young actor that Chicago is a great place to develop one's craft.
Said Lennix, "I think it's the best place that I've found. If you want to act and you have talent and perseverance, you can act in Chicago. There are enough theatres-union or non-union, known or not well known-where you can do the work. You may not become an overnight sensation, but if you're interested in playing Hamlet, you can certainly do that," said Lennix, who now resides in Los Angeles but frequently returns to Chicago to work.
He continued, "We get caught up, myself included, with the rat race of, "Oh, I need money for the rent or the phone bill, so I better go do this stupid, cheesy television show,' and that's dangerous. It can become a way of life and you can quickly lose yourself and forget the reasons you started doing this. If it's got to be a chore, I could have been a bank teller."
Before choosing to pursue the life of an actor, Lennix, as a teenager, was planning to become a Catholic priest. At 15, his seminary put on a staging of Guys and Dolls, for which he tried out and got cast in. That was when he discovered acting and began to shift his professional devotion from God to theatre.
This detail of his past seems particularly pertinent because it is so tied to his present state. Acting is more than just a job for this thespian. It is a spiritual release and, one could argue, a religious experience at times-a fact clearly evident in his current on-screen achievement.