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The Wire star Wendell Pierce has opened-up about his recent campaign to voice the role of Cleveland Brown in Family Guy.
The actor recently tweeted interest in taking over the role after Mike Henry, a white actor, stepped-down and said that “persons of colour should play characters of colour”.
Speaking to NME about the campaign in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Pierce revealed that he has not been in contact with the show as of yet.
“I was amazed at this one tweet I put out one Sunday night thinking somebody might look at it and say yes or no and that would be it,” he recalled. “I woke up the next morning to realise it went viral! That was pleasant and good to see. The producers have not contacted us or anything yet, but we’ll see what happens.”
In his original tweet, the actor stated: “Now that Mike Henry has consciously given up the role of Cleveland, I am publicly starting a campaign to voice the role myself on The Cleveland Show. #WendellIsCleveland”.
Explaining his own reasons for stepping down, Henry previously said: “It’s been an honour to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of colour should play characters of colour. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role.”
The news came after The Simpsons announced that white actors would no longer voice characters of colour on the animated series.
Meanwhile, Jenny Slate confirmed she would not play biracial character Missy any longer on Netflix‘s Big Mouth and Kristen Bell stepped down from her role of a mixed race character on Apple TV+’s Central Park.
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