Rustin is streaming on Netflix now and tells the story of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and his mission to organize the March on Washington in 1963. But the film also looks at the relationship Rustin had with the civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. PopCulture.com spoke to Aml Ameen who portrayed King in Rustin, and he said the role is big for his career.
“It’s quite a life-changing experience,” Ameen told PopCulture. “You’re playing Dr. King who’s been characterized and played in so many different movies for so long. You are having to find a new direction to playing King. The King that I portrayed is the King that nobody knew. The King behind closed doors. Martin Luther King is an icon and everybody knows him. But his private life was kind of kept secret until this film, Rustin and his relationship and friendship with Bayard Rustin himself, Bayard’s influence on him. And it was all about trying to find a way into figuring out what is my contribution as Martin going to be to this film?”
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Ameen, who is known for directing and starring in the Christmas movie Boxing Day, said playing King wasn’t a goal he set for himself. But when talking about how he landed the role, Ameen said it started with something that is closely connected with King.
“I had a dream that I was playing Martin Luther King,” Ameen said. “And it wasn’t a fixed goal for me. It’s not something that I really thought about. I thought, ‘How strange.’ And then a month later, August 17th, I got an email from my agent saying, [casting director] Avy Kaufman would like you to audition for the role of Dr. King. And it was strange because at that point, I was finished on the touches of my movie, Boxing Day, my directorial debut, and I was acting in something else. And so I was really frantic and I was like, ‘How am I going to develop King in two, three days?’ And I just kind of went off instinct and impulse and auditioned for it. And then a second audition came over Zoom like this with [director] George C. Wolfe, who is a brilliant genius and a hoot, and he kind of guided me through his version of what he would like it to be.”
With King having a close relationship with Rustin, Ameen got to work closely with Colman Domingo who plays the titular character. Domingo’s portrayal of Rustin led to him being nominated for multiple awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Ameen was happy to be reunited with Domingo as he said they have been working together “off and on for about 10 years.”
“We first worked together on the Butler, Lee Daniels’ Butler, and then we got together one of Ava DuVernay’s pilots that never got picked up,” Ameen revealed. “And then, so this was our third venture together, and we had such a great time in 2012 doing The Butler and being in New Orleans and having fun. So it was this immediate synergy of us coming together and kind of reestablishing that friendship and that relationship.
“And then it was about me figuring out, okay, how does Aml best support Coleman in the undertaking of playing King? And that just meant being incredibly prepared and incredibly moment to moment and discovering it with him and not even overly talking about it, just connecting his two brothers to friends and feeling out and just dishing out different things. Coleman’s such a great actor that I’m coming with the best of what I have to offer if I’m going to be on set with him. So it was amazing. And he’s fun, and he leads a really humorous, fun set.”
