Ben Vereen

**Jesse Thorn** (0:00)
I'm Jesse Thorn. Katie Dipple, the creator of the horror comedy Widows Bay, got invited to a Halloween party. Great, she said. I love wearing costumes. Pretty soon, she'd thrown something together. The perfect baba duke look.
The only problem? Well, no one else at the Halloween party bothered to dress up.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:21)
And when you're sitting for an hour and a half like that, it feels real different after a beat, you know?

**Jesse Thorn** (0:28)
Overused word, but iconic. From maximumfun.org and NPR, it's Bullseye.
This week, at least you got to spook out her boyfriend. We'll also talk with Katie Dippeld about her wonderful new TV show. Plus, a legend of stage and screen, Ben Vereen. That's all coming up on Bullseye. But first, the news.
It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn, my first guest this week, Ben Vereen. He is a performer, and by that I mean an actor, a singer, a dancer, a classic triple threat. He has been performing since he was six, as a kid, in Brooklyn, in front of the congregation at his Pentecostal church. By the time he turned 20, he was acting on Broadway. First in Hare, a few years later, Jesus Christ Superstar, his part as Judas Iscariot, earned him a Tony nomination. A year later, he won a Tony for his role in Pippin.
And as brilliant a singer and dancer and stage actor Ben Vereen was, he aspired to even more than that. He wanted to make a name for himself worldwide. TV and movies were calling. In 1977, Vereen got a part in one of the biggest TV productions of all time, Roots. He played the enslaved person Chicken George. That part earned him an Emmy nomination. And nearly 50 years later, Vereen finds himself playing sort of the same character, at least according to Vereen. He plays Isham Worthy, an enslaved person and conductor of the Underground Railroad living in the Antebellum South. The TV show is called The Gray House. It's a series that's out now on Prime Video. I'm so thrilled to get to talk with Ben Vereen, a genuine legend. Let's get right into it.
Ben Vereen, welcome to Bullseye. I am really happy to have you on the show.

**Ben Vereen** (3:39)
I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:42)
Ben, is it different to prepare for playing a character who lived or fictionally lived 160 whatever years ago?

**Ben Vereen** (3:54)
Yes, it is. For me, it is. I can't say that for all actors because I'm not them, but I am myself. And for me, I've got to somehow connect with the ancestors, if I may, and ask their permission to delve inside that spirit of that person that I'm going to interpret their lives. And in doing so, it gives me an opportunity to open up a part of me and my experiences now and then. Because life is a continuum. And although it seems like that was happening then, but the behaviors are happening now. And how I deal with them is how I deal with today. But how they dealt with them was how they dealt with them at that particular time. So I have to find a place of acceptance and allow myself to sink into that behavior.
And sometimes it gets a little rough. It gets a little rough. Although the writers have written wonderful dialogue, but it's the moments that are not spoken.
That's from the depth of the individual that you're trying to portray gets to come through.

**Jesse Thorn** (5:09)
What do you do to ask permission?

**Ben Vereen** (5:11)
I have my own ritual.
I get quiet. First of all, I get in the stillness. A friend of mine said, once you read the manual, throw it away and trust your instincts. So I read the manual, I go within, and I breathe. I pray that I give honor to that particular character that I'm bringing forth at that particular moment.

**SPEAKER_4** (5:40)
And when they do, you better pray to the Lord for mercy on your soul for what will be done to you.

**Ben Vereen** (5:46)
Mary Jane, why don't you move up north and take Tadpole with you?

**SPEAKER_4** (5:50)
Oh. Well, you come with us.

**Ben Vereen** (5:53)
I got the Van Luzer set up our underground railroad here. I'm the conductor, and I'm going to finish what I started.

**Jesse Thorn** (6:02)
Is it harder to make that jump when the character that you're playing on screen is an enslaved person?

**Ben Vereen** (6:09)
No, no. Time is a continuum. And although consciously, the human, I'm thinking about the fact of the fear factor, that's what I got to get away from.