Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson is an American film and television character actor who is best known for his roles as serial killer William Hinks on The Practice, Benjamin Linus on Lost, Zep Hindle in the first Saw film, and Harold Finch on the CBS series Person of Interest. Emerson has also worked extensively in theater and narration. He has won two Primetime Emmy Awards and been nominated for three others, as well as receiving other awards and nominations. Emerson is married to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth7 September 1954
CityCedar Rapids, IA
CountryUnited States of America
We just say there are five, you know, racial groups in the US. I say that these folks are what we call a sixth American. There's something different. They are somebody who - they don't exist in any particular racial category, so they all feel it and they kind of congregate to each other.
So different groups have different definitions, and then they clash on those. So it takes adept leadership to say we're going to work through these.
Yeah, it's funny, working on a show with as large a cast as we have here, your work gets sort of compartmentalized. There's still about half the cast that I've never had a scene with but I have missed working with Terry.
It worries me a little bit the reach and power of TV. More people saw me in 'The Practice' than will ever see me in all the stage plays I ever do. Which is sort of humbling. Or troubling. Or both.
I may have to shop with them. But on Sunday I don't want to have to worship with them. I want to be able to just be myself and let my hair down." It's also, of course, as we know, the seat of political organization and the affirming of your blackness and so on.
There's a lot of life there, but it's a different sort, because there's a lot less immigrants and a lot more racial, the mix of black and white in particular. I've actually never been to their worship for an extended period of time, so I can't comment wisely on it.
I think it's pretty dynamic. There's a lot of energy there and life, and you'll have women dressed in their traditional African dress when they come, and you have people from all over the place, and some people have headphones on because they're listening in Spanish.
It was an all-white church. It was starting to decline. They had to hire a new pastor, and they hired him. But he came under the condition that "I want and I'm called to make this a multiethnic church." So they knew. He's interesting because he's part-Asian, part-white. He's married to a Hispanic woman, so that's their family and that's their vision.
So one of the profound things we found when studying these congregations, the mixed ones, is just how much overlap and interracial ties that develop not only with the people in the congregation, but they start meeting each other's families, and their friends, and they go to each other's neighborhoods if they live in different neighborhoods, and at work they meet people they wouldn't otherwise met, and so it creates a whole new definition of what the group is.
I see it happen in uniracial congregations all the time. But people - when they're in mixed company, we speak differently.
I see this in the way that sermons are preached. How would you give a Black Nationalist speech or campaign for the Republicans when you're an integrated congregation? It doesn't happen.
So the tradition from Europe is that you're supposed to emphasize the mind over the body, so you sing from a very kind of staid perspective. Again, there are charismatic white congregations all over, and they don't sing that way. But, you know, on the average.
Absolutely, although every congregation will say, you know, every worship leader will say it's vital. It's very important, but again these are, you know, these are different cultural styles.
What happens is sometimes these congregations will still have the white style of worship, even though they're mixed, because folks are willing to give up whatever they may have come with. So it's still quite a stretch for African Americans, yeah.