‘Doctor Who’ Actress Alex Kingston Decries Cancel Culture: “I Don’t Think People Realise How Dangerous Cancelling People Is”
Like most sane individuals in the world, actress Alex Kingston is both absolutely fed-up with and ready to move past the entire, unforgiving concept of ‘cancel culture’.
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Kingston, who readers may recognize as having played River Song in Doctor Who and Dinah Lance in Arrow, offered her criticism of cancel culture during a recent interview given to UK news outlet The Telegraph in promotion of her upcoming appearance in Douglas is Cancelled, an ITV drama in which its titular news anchor finds himself under fire from society after making an off-color joke while on-air.
Pressed by the outlet’s Gabriel Tate for her thoughts on the entire phenomena, the actress asserted, “Cancel culture is terrifying.”
“Sort of fascistic, really,” she added. “I don’t think people realise how dangerous cancelling people is, what that has meant historically.”
Expanding on her viewpoint, Kingston continued, “My generation is treading on eggshells, not knowing whether what you say will unintentionally hurt somebody. I get really confused about pronouns, for instance. I’m just not confident with how and when to use them.”
“There is no empathy or sympathy, opinions are immediate and black and white,” she ultimately concluded of her thoughts. “I hope we’ll start coming back to a place where people can be kinder to each other, both in thinking about what they’re going to say and hearing what’s being said.”
To this end, Kingston then addressed the ever-growing discourse around the concept of ‘authentic casting’ – i.e. casting actors in a role based on whether or not they share the exact, immutable personal traits as a given character – and shared her hope that society can “reach a balance where parts are open, potentially to everyone, but within the right context.”
“Sometimes, if you want to be historically accurate, you’ve got to face the reality of what that would have meant in casting terms,” said the Doctor Who staple. “People should be allowed to explore roles they would not have been able to explore before and also not be deprived of roles or even of writing roles because they don’t actually physically apply to them. We need a sensible, fertile middle ground.”
And while not related to the concept of cancel culture per se, later on the interview, Kingston was notably pressed for her thoughts on Doctor Who‘s current Series 14, as penned by Russell T Davies and led by actor Ncuti Gatwa.
Unfortunately for the curious, rather than having anything specific to say about the run either good or bad, the actress instead admitted, “I’ve been too busy to watch anything that needs my focus and attention.”
“I’m behind on Ncuti and the whole new world of Disney Plus,” she said. “The fans will bring me up to date, no doubt.”
(And by the looks of the series’ current ratings, she’s not alone in her thus-far-disinterest in the current run of Doctor Who.)
The season finale of Doctor Who, ‘Empire of Death’, is currently set to close out Gatwa’s first proper outing as the titular Time Lord on June 22nd.
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