Delroy Lindo has revealed what went through his mind in the split second after a racist slur was shouted at him on stage at the BAFTA Film Awards, and it turns out his first instinct was simple.
THE Sinners star, 73, appeared on NPR Fresh air on Thursday, March 5, where he opened up about the time Tourette Syndrome advocate John Davidson, 54, unintentionally shouted the n-word while Lindo and co-star Michael B. Jordan presented an award at the Feb. 22 ceremony.
Lindo was attentive and, at first, reluctant. When Mosley introduced the topic, he fought back.
“Can I stop you for a second? With all due respect,” he said. “With all due respect, I’m not going to talk about it. I’m laughing because in the intro, when you said, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll talk about what happened with the BAFTAs,’ I laughed because I said, ‘No, we’re not.'”
He went on, however, to describe what happened internally in that moment, and the picture he painted was one of extraordinary calm under pressure.
“You have to understand, we had work. We were the first presenters of the evening,” he explained.
“And we had to read this teleprompter, and we both did exactly that. Now, a few people who know, my wife says I adjusted my glasses, and she said she knew when I adjusted my glasses that something was happening internally. But there was a nanosecond where I was like, ‘Wait, did I just hear what I thought I heard?'”
He added, “But then, and it was really a nanosecond, you had to read the teleprompter and proceed to give the award. So, you know, there was no time at all. I processed the same way I processed in a nanosecond, Mike did the same, and we went on and did our job.”
Davidson had been invited to the ceremony as a representative of the film I swearbased on his own life and experiences with Tourette Syndrome.
The film won BAFTAs for Best Leading Actor and Best Casting. In a Facebook post on March 1, Davidson addressed the aftermath.
“While I will never apologize for having Tourette syndrome, I will apologize for any pain, upset, and misunderstanding it may create,” he wrote, adding that the experience reminded him how much work still needs to be done to raise awareness of “such a misunderstood condition.”
BAFTA formally apologized to Lindo and Jordan on February 23, after the BBC broadcast the incident without removing it.
Lindo previously spoke briefly about the episode at the NAACP Image Awards on February 28, where he thanked those who showed their support afterward.
