Fear is a lesson in history and perspective...
When I was asked to audition for EXPOSURE I had a hair trigger reaction to the character of Roxanne as it pertained to the audition scene... someone who cared deeply about her job position, but who cared for the people and community she was instructed to inoculate. As actors we bring our whole selves to a project and with that experience comes cultural egocentricity; it is just part of who we are. I come from grandparents and parents who were raised in the segregated South. They were and are proud people who in the former generation feared the government and in the latter reaped benefits and became a part of it.
So the impression made by the character was personal and, in retrospect, I supposed it may have been one of the reasons that I was cast...
Roxanne is determined to complete the task of immunizing citizens against the virus and she is a woman on a mission, caring solely about the mission at hand.
From where I sat, government had been an asset to community-. Being a child of the post Civil Rights Era, it afforded me opportunities, it employed my Dad and a number of my relatives, and my knowledge of all the things put in place to aid mothers and children who were underinsured and under privileged was expanse... surely the federal government would look out for its constituents, right?
Interestingly enough though, during my Grandparents' era, the US Public Health Service ran syphilis experiments on African American men in Alabama under the guise of free health care. No wonder, sometimes they were reluctant to see a doctor even though they were insured. So? These are the questions that swirled inside of me as the script unfolded and we embarked upon the shoot and it brought me a great deal of joy to pose the questions with Mia.
In the recent wake of the H1N1 vaccines that year, I hadn't a second thought about getting one, but I had a number of friends who questioned the necessity for it...what was the fear and so forth. As I spoke to people it became clear to me that history, culture and ethnicity informed a lot of the answers to individual questions. Where people lived...how they are treated by government officials, what results do they get when requesting aid, was asking for help ever an issue in their lives all had something to do with their decisions.
I am excited that the dialogue about our commonality and different feelings about our government will be raised when people see the film and moreover, intrigued by what new ideas the film will spark as a result.
